When Hugh Grant and his then producing partner Elizabeth Hurley were making the mob comedy movie Mickey Blue Eyes during the 90s, they were introduced to some colorful characters with names like Rocco the Butcher and Vinnie Seven Heads for research purposes. These gentlemen of Italian descent took a shine to Hurley and some were even extras in the movie.
It was best rom-com Four Weddings and a Funeral director Mike Newell who hooked Hugh Grant up with the Mafia connection, because he’d recently made drama movie Donnie Brasco starring Al Pacino and Johnny Depp.
As Grant told EW in 1999; “Mike called me up, slightly nervously, and said, ‘Hugh, I think you really, really should talk to a very good friend of mine named Rocco. I can’t give you his last name because I don’t actually know it. He’s called Rocco the Butcher, but don’t let that put you off.’ So we talked to Rocco, and he introduced us to a good friend of his, who was called Vinnie Seven Heads.”
Grant continued; “Elizabeth did a lot of heavy flirting with them, and they did a lot of heavy flirting with her. I sort of sat off in a corner — they weren’t particularly interested in me. But Elizabeth they adored, and she became their princess.”
In a scene echoing the famous opening scene of The Godfather, director Kelly Makin even had the head of a crime family come to him, on the day of the filming of a giant wedding scene and ask for his daughter to be in it; “He said to me ‘I would like to ask you this favor of putting my daughter in this movie. Very quickly I said yes, of course, and she had a walk-on. At the end, he came up and said, ‘Thank you for doing this. If I can ever do anything for you, just tell me.'”
Check out our guides to the best 90s movies and the best thriller movies.