Martin Scorsese’s mob epic The Irishman has added Boardwalk Empire actor Jack Huston to the cast. Scorsese’s movie already boasts an impressive roster of actors including Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Harvey Keitel, Joe Pesci, Ray Romano, and Bobby Cannavale.


The Irishman stars De Niro as real-life purported mob hitman Frank Sheeran, who late in his life claimed to have been involved in the killing of teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino), whose disappearance to this day remains one of history’s most famous unsolved mysteries. The film’s script was adapted by Oscar-winner Steven Zaillian from the book I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank ‘The Irishman’ Sheeran and the Inside Story of the Mafia, the Teamsters, and the Final Ride by Jimmy Hoffa by Charles Brandt. Netflix has acquired the film with an eye toward a 2019 release.

Martin Scorsese has assembled a formidable cast for his decades-spanning story The Irishman, and now, as reported by Deadline, Jack Huston has been added. No details are known about Huston’s role.


Scorsese has brought back a number of actors he previously worked with to fill out his Irishman cast. Huston memorably appeared as disfigured former army sniper Richard Harrow in the Scorsese-produced Boardwalk Empire. His first major role was as Pete Musane in David O. Russell’s American Hustle. In 2016 Huston scored the lead role in the remake of Ben-Hur, but the film was a flop and did nothing to raise his profile in Hollywood. Huston is also set to appear in Mad Men creator Matt Weiner’s Amazon series The Romanoffs.


Scorsese is also reuniting on The Irishman with Danny Cannavale and Ray Romano, two actors who worked for him on his one-and-done HBO series Vinyl. Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, and Joe Pesci are all veterans at working with Scorsese, with Keitel going all the way back to the director’s first film, Who’s That Knocking at My Door. De Niro and Keitel both starred in Scorsese’s Mean Streets and Taxi Driver, and De Niro starred with Pesci in Raging Bull, Goodfellas and Casino. Once known as Scorsese’s most frequent and successful acting collaborator, De Niro hasn’t worked with the director on a feature film in decades, so The Irishman represents a major reunion moment. Al Pacino is making his first appearance in a Scorsese film, but has worked together twice with De Niro, most memorably on Michael Mann’s Heat.


The Irishman represents Scorsese’s return to the gangster genre, a form he mastered with his 1990 film Goodfellas, but the director says it will take a different approach than his previous forays into the genre. For De Niro to play the title character across the span of decades, Scorsese is expected to employ expensive CGI de-aging effects. We’ll see if the film is able to join the list of Scorsese classics.