MARTIN SCORCESE REVISITS IRISH MOB

(VIDEO) Gangs of New York director Martin Scorcese revisits Irish mob in The Departed.

After Gangs of New York, the 19th century depiction of Irish gangs, director Martin Scorcese took his fascination with the Irish mob into modern times with The Departed, a remake of the Hong Kong crime thriller Infernal Affairs.

Believe it or not this is the very first collaboration between the master of gangster movies Scorcese and the master actor Jack Nicholson who took on the role of Irish mob boss Frank Costello.

“It took me quite a while to read it through because I started visualizing it enjoying the nature of the story and also the characters. I think that’s what really started to get me interested, the characters and the world that it depicted.”

Jack was very outspoken about what he wanted to bring into his character and would often call Scorcese at all hours of the night to tell him his ideas, many of which made it into the film. The Departed opens Friday.rn

“We never quite connected until I thought it would be really interesting to see if he’d have any desire to take on a role like Costello in a genre that I kind of felt most comfortable with over the years and to see what we could come up with. It took this amount of time but it was really worth it because we had quite a time together on this picture.”