Welcome back to Behind The Scenes Saturday! I can’t tell you how much I love Casino. When I first saw this film, I became so obsessed with it that I would just watch it over and over again. So, I wanted to dedicate this post to my favorite Martin Scorsese film! Enjoy!

(Trivia provided by IMDb.com)

(Pictures provided by google.com and IMDb.com)

(SPOILER ALERT!!!)

• 1,000,000 dollars went to the film’s costume budget. Sharon Stone (Ginger) had about forty different outfits for the film, and Robert De Niro (Sam) had seventy. Both were allowed to keep all of their outfits after filming ended.
• De Niro and Joe Pesci (Nicky) improvised most of their on-screen conversations. Director Martin Scorsese only told them where to begin and where to finish. The rest, the duo came up with on their own.
• When it came to the film’s “head in a vice” scene, Scorsese stated he only added that scene so the MPAA would consider the other violent scenes less graphic in comparison and would only cut that one out. However, the MPAA didn’t want the scene cut anyway, so it was only slightly edited and kept in the final cut.
• For the movie, Sharon Stone motivated her on-screen daughter Erika Von Tagen (Amy) to constantly annoy James Woods (Lester).
• One of the hardest things that producers had to do was finding people who could tell them how to cheat in a casino.

• During Lester and Ginger’s phone conversation, Woods’ character wasn’t supposed to talk but Woods improvised all the lines and suggested adding the cocaine and prostitute.
• Sharon Stone was very anxious filming the scene where Ginger is talking in the phone booth, so Martin Scorsese comforted her by sitting out of the shot and holding her hand.
• Michelle Pfeiffer was considered for the role of Ginger. However, because the role was too similar to her character in Scarface (1983), Pfeiffer turned it down.
• For the film, Scorsese hired parolees and the FBI agents who busted them as consultants.
• Rita Ryack, the film’s costume designer, stated that the costumes represented the nature of the story. meaning, when the story became more chaotic, so did the color combination of the characters’ clothes.

• When Nicky is dropped into the hole to be buried alive, Joe Pesci re-broke the rib he broke while filming Raging Bull (1980).
• In the original script, Nicky was supposed to shoot and kill Lester in the desert for Sam.
• Sharon Stone didn’t have a body double for the film. She stated, “That house had marble hallways, and my legs would just be black and blue and green.” I can imagine how painful it was to film the scene where Sam drags Ginger through the house to the closet.
• De Niro’s character, Sam, was based on Casino boss, Frank ‘Lefty’ Rosenthal. De Niro actually met with Rosenthal to prepare for the role. After seeing a special screening, Rosenthal was very pleased with the film. The only problem he had with it was the scene where Sam is juggling on his show. He stated that the scene made him look foolish and he never juggled on his show.
• This is the last film that Scorsese, De Niro, Pesci, and Frank Vincent (Frank) collaborated on together. Although, 24 years later, we’ll get to see Scorsese, De Niro, and Pesci work together again in The Irishman (2019)!