Fans of the iconic movie Goodfellas have realised one of the most beloved scenes was improvised. The hit 1990 crime thriller tells the story of the rise and fall of Mafia accomplice Henry Hill, who was linked with the Lucchese crime family of New York City from the mid 50s until his arrest on narcotics charges in 1980. He went on to become an FBI informant.

Goodfellas is based on the non-fiction book about Hill’s life, Wiseguy, written by crime reporter Nicholas Pileggi. The movie stars Ray Liotta as Hill, as well as Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci, Lorraine Bracco, Paul Sorvino and more.

Pileggi helped pen the script alongside veteran director Martin Scorsese. Collaboration was an integral part of the creative process, with Scorsese and Pileggi said to have worked on 12 drafts of the script.

The director encouraged the writer to be open to a more non-linear or traditional approach to the story’s structure. Goodfellas was critically acclaimed and went on to be nominated for a string of awards.

It bagged some coveted wins, including the BAFTA for Best Film and Best Director, as well as an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Joe Pesci, among other wins throughout awards season.

The movie is still praised and lauded as a cinematic masterpiece to this day, with many other filmmakers inspired by its distinctive style. Nicholas Pileggi told GQ: “Mob guys love it, because it's the real thing, and they knew the people in it. They say, ‘It’s like a home movie’.”

In one scene, Martin Scorsese cast his mother, Catherine, to play Joe Pesci’s character Tommy’s mother. The director didn’t give her a script though, and told her the purpose of the scene.

When he called “action”, she improvised her lines. On-set assistant Heather Norton explained to GQ: “There is no noise on Scorsese’s set… They improv'd a lot of stuff in this very quiet environment where they felt totally at ease.”

The scene was recently shared again on Facebook by the popular page History in Memes, where the improvised nature of it was discussed. In the caption accompanying the clip, the page admin penned: “In Goodfellas (1990), Martin Scorsese created an iconic scene with his mother, Catherine Scorsese, as Tommy’s mother. Without a script, Scorsese directed her to act like a typical Italian-American mom.

“Her spontaneous dialogue about cooking a meal at 2AM, brimming with warmth and authenticity, was completely improvised, capturing familial dynamics and adding a memorable, grounded moment to the film.”

Reflecting on the film with the American Film Institute, Martin Scorsese explained: “What I wanted to show you was the danger of the exuberance of that kind of life.

“At first, you see the danger of the exuberance, the danger of the excitement. When you're young, you think you’re going to live forever, and you think you’re tough and you could take a few more shots in the head than somebody else could.

“So you think you’re tougher than the other person - well, eventually, if you don’t use your brain, you know you’re not going to wind up anywhere.

“That's what happens with the Joe Peshi character and I think the danger of the excitement of that lifestyle is what I grew up around, and I saw a lot of people disappear because of that.”