The ‘Head in a Vase’ scene actually happened

You’d hope this was an embellishment or something, but no. It’s legit. The film is based off of a book, and Scorsese based his characters on real people with changed names.

The scene itself involves Joe Pesci’s Nicky Santoro, who’s interrogating a hitman. When the info isn’t forthcoming, the head meets the vise and the eyeball hits the cheek.

The real-life inspiration for Pesci’s character was Anthony John “Ant” Spilotro, who used this method on another mobster named Billy McCarthy in 1962. And it was far worse than just a vise and an eyeball.