Casino Movie Is This Your Pen

1. Sharon Stone who played Ginger suffered from bad anxiety while filming the scene with the phone booth. Martin Scorsese sat on the floor just out of the shot to hold her hand.

2. To prepare for his role and to really understand his character, Robert De Niro actually met Frank Rosenthal, who Sam ‘Ace’ Rothstein was based off of.

CASINO By Nicholas Pileggi EXT. RESTAURANT PARKING LOT, LAS VEGAS, 1983 - DAY SAM 'ACE' ROTHSTEIN, a tall, lean, immaculately dressed man approaches his car, opens the door, and g. It’s now been 20 years since the release of Martin Scorsese’s Casino. It’s a story of sex, drugs, violence, stealing, and gambling or basically everything that makes Las Vegas great.

3. The shots of the Casino imploded were actually taken from The Dunes from October 1993 and January 1994.

4. They shot the movie in an actual casino between the hours of 1am-4am so that they wouldn’t irritate or disrupt gamblers.

However it was good business for the casino after they put up a huge banner that read “Robert De Niro, Sharon Stone and Joe Pesci Filming the New Move ‘Casino’ Inside!”

5. De Niro ended up having 70 costumes throughout the making of the film, and Sharon Stone had 40. Both were allowed to keep the outfits and the costume budget totaled up to $1 million.

6. Oscar Goodman played Rothstein’s attorney, and was a lawyer in real life. It turns out that he defended multiple reputed mobsters with connections in Las Vegas, and was even elected Mayor in June 1999.

7. De Niro and Pesci did a lot of improv work – the director would say when to start and stop, but the rest was all them.

8. The counting room however was all a made up set because the film crew weren’t allowed to shoot inside of the real counting room in Riviera Casino.

9. K.K. Ichikawa (Nobu Matsuhisa) was based off of real life Akio Kashiwagi, who was big in casinos back in the 70’s and 80’s. He ended up using up all of his credit, left owing several casino executives, including Donald J. Trump, millions of dollars. In 1992 he was murdered in his home by Japanese mafia, the yakuza.

Casino Movie Is This Your Pencil

10. Nicky Santoro was put in the Black Book in the film, based off of Anthony Spilotro. However in real life it was Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, who was the inspiration for Sam, who was in the Black Book and run out of Vegas.

Casino Movie Is This Your Pen

11. Martin Scorsese subtly hints at The Tangiers being based off of the history of the Stardust casino by playing the song ‘Stardust’ three times throughout the film.

12. Sharon Stone’s gold and white beaded gown weighed 45 pounds and caused her incredible back pain following an old injury.

13. Pesci broke the same rib he broke while filming Raging Bull (1980) when his character Nicky was pushed into the hole in the cornfield.

14. The deputies that show up at Sam’s house after Ginger hits his car are real Las Vegas deputies who were working as security on set.

15. James Woods also used a lot of improvisation work, and it was even his idea for his character to be with a prostitute while on the phone with Ginger.

16. Woods even messaged Scorsese saying “Any time, any place, any part, any fee” after hearing he was interested in working with him.

17. Martin Scorsese hired real parolees and F.B.I agents from that era to help with constructing the plot.

18. Producers claim that the hardest part about filming was finding gamblers who would tell them how to cheat.