Character actor Joe Pesci is well-known and versatile. Pesci played Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas, Jake La Motta’s brother, and manager in Raging Bull, and also had famous roles in Home Alone, My Cousin Vinny, and Lethal Weapon. But, he hasn’t been active recently. Isn’t that funny? How funny is it? These are the actual reasons Joe Pesci doesn’t appear in films.

Pesci gave up acting in 1999 to focus on his first passion, music. Pesci has the skill, as opposed to many performers who only perform because they can or star in Broadway shows. Although Jimi Hendrix was superior, he played guitar with Joey Dee and the Starliters in the 1960s. In 1968, he issued Little Joe Certainly Can Sing! under the name Joe Ritchie. When his acting career took off and music was put on hiatus for 30 years, he introduced the two musicians who would go on to form the Four Seasons. After the release of Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just for You, Pesci announced his retirement. The character My Cousin Vinny played by Pesci inspired the name of the novelty endeavor. the record? Rap music.

It can take time to socialize. Angie Everhart, a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, and actress who was six inches taller and 27 years younger, dated Joe Pesci in 2000. Seven years later, Pesci asked Everhart to marry him (which would make her his fourth wife). In 2008, little than a year after being engaged, they got divorced.

Pesci and De Niro get along well. Over the past 40 years, they have appeared in a number of films together, several of which rank among their best: Once Upon a Time in America, Raging Bull, Casino, and Goodfellas, which earned Joe Pesci the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. (Speech of acceptance in five words) “My honor. Thank you. Due to his acquaintance with De Niro, Pesci was able to land his one significant role since 2000: a cameo in the movie The Good Shepherd from 2006. A 2011 Snickers ad and Love Ranch both featured Pesci.

Pesci left acting in the late 1990s because he was no longer motivated. After 1995’s Casino, he made fewer films, and the offers he received fell short of his best work. Eight heads in a duffel bag? Been fishing? Pesci was nominated for Worst Supporting Actor in 1998’s Lethal Weapon 4 for his role as Leo Getz once more. Pesci stated, “I want good movie parts, in 1992. Poor movie acting doesn’t help. That’s deadly.

Although Pesci is retired, he may still play a significant part under the appropriate circumstances. He played Angelo Ruggiero, John Gotti’s “enforcer” and pal, in the John Travolta–led Gambino crime family drama from 2011. Pesci put on 30 pounds to play the enormous Ruggiero. Then he received a pay cut and a promotion. It is described in Pesci’s $3 million lawsuit against the movie’s producers. Even though Pesci and Fiore Productions reached an undisclosed agreement in 2013, the Gambino project hasn’t been filmed.

From 1988 to 1992, Pesci was married to actress-model Claudia Haro, with whom he had a daughter. Haro began acting after the divorce and appeared in four Pesci movies. In an odd court case, Pesci also stood by her side.

Haro divorced Pesci and afterward wed stuntman Garrett Warren. Things got worse in 1999, just a year before Warren was shot by an unknown person at his Westlake Village, California, home. Police uncovered Warren’s address and a picture of him in the trunk of a car during a drug investigation, ending years of searching. This led them to the conclusion that Haro had hired a hitman to kill her ex-husband. (She employed a second hitman to complete it.)

A big group of people, including a nun in white and Haro’s second ex-husband Joe Pesci in black, attended her 2012 trial. Haro entered a not-guilty plea and was given a 12-year sentence. Police searched and inspected Pesci after a witness insisted that he had paid for Haro to hit Warren.

Despite safety precautions and qualified workers, Joe Pesci had injuries on two different film sets.

In his battle with Robert De Niro in the movie Raging Bull, Joe Pesci fractured a rib. Then, 15 years later, in the Martin Scorsese movie Casino, he broke the same rib. Pesci was nominated for an Academy Award for the first, but he quipped that he was sick of going through hardships because of his career and said that there were benefits to making bad movies. Pesci once observed, “Great movies mean damaged ribs,” during a 1997 American Film Institute tribute to Scorsese. I was kept secure by The Super and Jimmy Hollywood.

Some people play golf so much that they work just to pay for country club dues and green fees. Joe Pesci might fit the bill. Before giving up acting, he played golf as frequently as he could. Without Hollywood movies getting in the way, he has had more time to play his favorite game.

Pesci declined a lot of film offers after Raging Bull and instead focused on golf. He told New York he played golf every day to stay sane (via Turner Classic Movies). Playing partners included John Daly, Dennis Hopper, and Jack Nicholson. The actor has a 15.9 handicap.

In the early 2000s, the “jukebox musical,” which uses pre-existing songs by a single band or artist to tell its tale, was Broadway’s biggest craze. Famous examples include Mamma Mia! (ABBA), Good Vibrations (Beach Boys), and Jersey Boys (Four Seasons rising). Pesci played a key role in the 2014 Clint Eastwood film Jersey Boys, a 2005 Broadway musical. Pesci didn’t appear in each performance but he was involved in the establishment of the Four Seasons. He started the band by introducing his friend and fellow musician Tommy DeVito to writer Bob Gaudio. Joe Pesci (Joseph Russo) responds, “Funny how?,” in reference to his Goodfellas character “Tommy DeVito,” when he is called humorous.

The acting is weird. Psychological make-believe is when actors repress their own identities to embody a character from a script. It’s clear that going through such a procedure might affect an actor’s mentality, particularly for committed actors like Joe Pesci who portrayed dark and troubled roles.

He spoke about his identification struggles while performing in 1992 with the Orange County Register (via the Baltimore Sun). He set his ball on the first tee of the golf course, pulled back his club, and stopped in the middle of his swing. In an effort to lift his spirits, he left the ball. “Whose golf ball was that? Among Leo Getz, David Ferry, Tommy, Harry, or Joe? Pesci alluded to his personas. I’ve spent so much time being someone else and so little time being myself that I briefly forgot who I was. If Pesci was having trouble with these issues at his height, it’s understandable why he decided to stop performing.

The “Guy Movie Hall of Fame” was established by Pesci and De Niro during the 2016 Spike TV Guys Choice Awards. For years, Martin Scorsese tried to make The Irishman, but he insisted on De Niro and Pesci as the leads. De Niro said, “All he says is go f*** yourself.

Pesci rejected The Irishman more than forty times until Scorsese finally succeeded in persuading him to accept it in July 2017, according to Deadline. The $175 million film, which stars De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci as real-life crime boss Russell Bufalino, dramatizes the disappearance of union leader Jimmy Hoffa.