Why Isn’t Joe Pesci in ‘Mr. Scorsese’? Director Reveals Personal Reason He Refused Interviews

Steven Spielberg, Robert De Niro, Daniel Day-Lewis, Spike Lee, Leonardo DiCaprio, Sharon Stone, Jodie Foster, and Mick Jagger all appear in Apple TV‘s Mr. Scorsese documentary series, which explores the legendary director Martin Scorsese‘s life and work. But you won’t see Joe Pesci in the docuseries. There’s a personal reason for his absence.

The five-part series debuted on Apple TV on October 17. Its director, Rebecca Miller, couldn’t snag an interview with Pesci for the series, despite his long working relationship with Scorsese that won the actor an Oscar for his performance in Goodfellas. Miller told Variety that Pesci was “the only person who said ‘no'” to an interview for Mr. Scorsese. “He really didn’t want to be interviewed for this.”

Scorsese reveals in the documentary that Pesci was so good at playing gangsters and killers in films such as Goodfellas, Raging Bull, The Irishman, and more because he had personal experience with those types of people while growing up in Newark, New Jersey.

“Marty explains it a little bit in the documentary,” Miller said. “He talks about how Joe just doesn’t want to talk about the experiences that made him so perfect for this kind of role.”

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One of Pesci’s most famous scenes in a Scorsese film comes from Goodfellas, when his character, Tommy DeVito, yells at Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) for calling him funny. This was an improvised moment that was apparently inspired by something Pesci witnessed when he was younger.

“Joe was marked far worse than Marty was by those people,” Miller explained. “I don’t think he wants to go over all that.”

Mr. Scorsese is an unflinching look at Scorsese’s life, including his hard times. “He just decided in his heart to be frank,” Miller said of the filmmaker’s candidness in the docuseries.

Miller told TV Insider that “one of Martin Scorsese‘s strengths is his willingness to recognize the conflicting emotional currents in himself.”

“Acknowledging his own dark side enables him to empathize with his characters,” Miller added. “We who watch these imperfect characters treated with compassion by the filmmaker can perhaps begin to have mercy on ourselves.”

Get a deeper dive into Mr. Scorsese with Miller here.

Mr. Scorsese, Available Now, Apple TV