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Marisa Tomei recalls the My Cousin Vinny incident that emotionally wrecked her
My Cousin Vinny was one of Marisa Tomei’s favorite projects, even though the courtroom scene left her in tears
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It’s hard to think about Marisa Tomei without thinking of the 1992 comedy My Cousin Vinny. Tomei played Mona Lisa Vito, a sharp, tough, but sweet woman who the audience immediately fell in love with. Tomei had some of her finest cinematic moments in the film, including the famous courtroom scene. However, filming the iconic scene was another story.
During a spotlight panel at Fan Expo Philly, Tomei reminisced about her time filming My Cousin Vinny. “We shot in Alabama. It was only my second movie, so I didn’t really have that much experience at the time. I never went on location anywhere before that. My mother sent me with a lasagna that I carried on the plane. I probably asked her to make it for me, so I felt safe or something.”
Tomei also spoke highly of her costar and onscreen fiancé Joe Pesci. “We had a great time. It was a great script, but also Joe Pesci was really generous. He comes off like such a tough guy. He has that aspect to him, but he’s really a very caring person, so he really looked after me.”
Tomei then spoke about the memorable courtroom scene. “I don’t really remember how many times we did it. Now everything is shot on digital. That one was on film, so that takes longer in a good way, because you have more time to drop in. The idea behind digital was that we would have more time as actors, but actually you’re just speeding along at the speed of the digital instead. But at that time it was film, so it was probably a couple of days, because that was just the pace of how those things would happen.”
“The film was not good on that,” Tomei continued. "Something had happened. It wasn’t that the film was wrong, but something about where my eyeline was, so I had to redo the whole thing, but change, where I said right, I had to say left, where I said left, I had to say right, and I had to do it all over again. I cried. I was definitely very upset. I thought I was done. It was scary to make that transposition really fast.”
It may have taken a few tries (and some tears) to get there, but you can’t argue with the result. My Cousin Vinny is one of the most beloved comedies of the ‘90s, and we’ll never forget Tomei’s performance as Mona Lisa Vito.
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