20 Things You Didn't Know About Goodfellas
2. The Actors Didn't Quite Match Their Real-Life Counterparts
When adapting a movie from real-life events, creative liberties are going to be taken, even if it's mostly historically accurate.
In the case of Goodfellas, some of those liberties came with the actors' portrayals, according to this piece.
Ray Liotta was "tall, stylish, slender and handsome", while the real Henry Hill was "short, homely and slovenly." Hill also spoke in a heavy working-class Brooklyn accent, while Liotta had a more Suburban voice. Also, Liotta portrayed Hill as a calm and intelligent young man, while the real Hill was an erratic and hopeless drug addict.
Joe Pesci's Tommy DeVito was based on Tommy DeSimone, and Hill himself said that Pesci's portrayal was 90-99% accurate. There was just one problem: the real Tommy was massively built, and had a moustache and long hair, pretty much the polar opposite of Pesci's appearance. Also, Pesci was in his 40s at the time, while DeSimone died at age 28.
Finally, Robert De Niro's Jimmy Conway looked nothing like his real-life counterpart, Jimmy Burke, who was tall and powerfully built, and had blue eyes and blondish-gray hair.