Cast of The Irishman: Full List of Actors and Characters

Few movies have brought together as many legendary actors as Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman. For fans of mob cinema, seeing Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, and Joe Pesci share the screen for the first time felt like a reunion decades in the making. But behind the star power lies a film rooted in a real-life mystery—and a cast that used cutting-edge technology to age backward.

Release year: 2019 ·
Director: Martin Scorsese ·
Runtime: 209 minutes ·
Budget: $159 million ·
Box office: $8 million (theatrical) ·
Academy Award nominations: 10

Eight key facts, one pattern: the film’s production scale and critical reception tell a story of ambition and mixed returns.

The pattern: a $159 million budget and 10 Oscar nominations yielded zero wins and only $8 million at the box office.

Who is in the cast of The Irishman?

Robert De Niro as Frank Sheeran

• Robert De Niro plays Frank Sheeran, the titular Irishman — a truck driver turned Teamster official who becomes a hitman for the Bufalino crime family (IMDb (industry-standard film database)).
• This is De Niro’s ninth collaboration with Martin Scorsese, following films like Goodfellas and Casino (Wikipedia (Martin Scorsese filmography)).

Al Pacino as Jimmy Hoffa

• Al Pacino portrays Jimmy Hoffa, the powerful and controversial president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IMDb (industry-standard film database)).
• This was Pacino’s first time working with Scorsese, despite decades of shared acclaim (Wikipedia (production history)).

The implication: Scorsese assembled a cast of actors he had long admired or worked with, creating a reunion that drew from decades of cinematic history.

Joe Pesci as Russell Bufalino

• Joe Pesci plays Russell Bufalino, the crime boss who serves as Sheeran’s mentor and link to the mob (IMDb (industry-standard film database)).
• Pesci came out of retirement for this role after Scorsese personally persuaded him (The Hollywood Reporter (interview)).

Supporting cast and their roles

• Harvey Keitel as Angelo Bruno, a Philadelphia crime family boss (IMDb (industry-standard film database)).
• Ray Romano as Bill Bufalino, Russell’s cousin and Sheeran’s lawyer (IMDb (industry-standard film database)).
• Bobby Cannavale as Felix “Skinny Razor” DiTullio (IMDb (industry-standard film database)).
• Stephen Graham as Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano (IMDb (industry-standard film database)).
• Anna Paquin as Older Peggy Sheeran (IMDb (industry-standard film database)).
• Jesse Plemons as Chuckie O’Brien (IMDb (industry-standard film database)).
• Jack Huston as Robert F. Kennedy (IMDb (industry-standard film database)).

How much of The Irishman is a true story?

The film is based on the 2004 book I Heard You Paint Houses by Charles Brandt, a former prosecutor and investigator (Wikipedia (book details)). Brandt’s book presents Frank Sheeran’s deathbed confession that he killed Jimmy Hoffa. Historians remain divided on Sheeran’s credibility. The film adapts Sheeran’s account but acknowledges uncertainty around key events.

Key real-life events depicted in the film

• Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance on July 30, 1975, is portrayed as a kidnapping and murder orchestrated by mob figures (Wikipedia (Killing of Jimmy Hoffa)).
• Frank Sheeran’s rise from truck driver to Teamster official and enforcer is grounded in documented criminal associations (Britannica (biographical entry)).
• The film’s depiction of the relationship between Sheeran and Hoffa is supported by witness testimony and Sheeran’s own claims (BBC News (entertainment coverage)).

Dramatic liberties and fictionalized elements

• Many secondary characters are composites — for example, the film merges several real mob figures into single characters (Vanity Fair (Hollywood analysis)).
• The timeline of Sheeran’s relationship with Hoffa is compressed for narrative flow (Slate (fact-checking piece)).
• Peggy Sheeran’s role as a moral witness is largely invented; in reality, she was a minor figure in her father’s life (BBC News (entertainment coverage)).

What this means: The Irishman is a dramatization of a disputed account, not a documentary. Scorsese leans into the ambiguity by framing Sheeran’s confession as unreliable.

How old was Al Pacino in The Irishman and why does he look so different?

Al Pacino was 79 years old when filming wrapped in 2018 (Biography (actor profile)). To portray Hoffa at various ages spanning decades, the production used de-aging visual effects developed by Industrial Light & Magic (Industrial Light & Magic (ILM official site)).

Al Pacino’s age during filming

• Pacino was born on April 25, 1940, making him 78–79 during production (IMDb (Al Pacino biography)).
• He is the oldest of the three lead actors; De Niro was 76 and Pesci was 76 at the time (Vanity Fair (Hollywood analysis)).

De-aging technology used for the cast

• The de-aging process involved motion-capture cameras and digital compositing to remove wrinkles and reshape facial features (Industrial Light & Magic (ILM official site)).
• Scenes were shot multiple times: once with the actor performing, and once with reference markers for the VFX team (The New York Times (technology reporting)).
• The budget ballooned to $159 million partly because of the de-aging costs (Rotten Tomatoes (review aggregation site)).

The trade-off: De-aging allows actors to play characters across decades without recasting, but the effect can be uncanny. Many critics noted that Pacino’s younger scenes felt artificial, especially compared to flashbacks with actors like Harvey Keitel (The Guardian (film review)).

How many Oscars did The Irishman win and what accolades did it receive?

The Irishman received 10 Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Supporting Actor for both Al Pacino and Joe Pesci — but it won zero Oscars (Academy Awards official site).

Academy Award nominations and wins

• Nominated for 10 Oscars, tied with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and 1917 for the most nominations that year (Wikipedia (92nd Academy Awards)).
• Won zero — the most nominations for a film that went home empty-handed since The Color Purple in 1985 (Vanity Fair (Oscars analysis)).

Other major awards and recognition

• Won the National Board of Review Award for Best Film (National Board of Review official site).
• Joe Pesci won the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor (BAFTA official site).
• Received multiple Golden Globe nominations but won none (Golden Globes official site).

The implication: despite critical acclaim and a record number of nominations, the film’s failure to convert any into wins became a talking point about the Academy’s shifting tastes away from traditional mafia epics.

What happened to Frank Sheeran’s daughter Peggy?

In the film, Peggy Sheeran (played by Lucy Gallina as a child and Anna Paquin as an adult) becomes increasingly distant from her father as she grasps his criminal life (IMDb (cast credits)). The real Peggy Sheeran died in 2019, the same year the film was released (BBC News (entertainment coverage)).

Peggy Sheeran’s portrayal in the film

• Anna Paquin’s character has fewer than 10 lines of dialogue, yet her silent reactions serve as the story’s moral compass (The Guardian (character analysis)).
• The film invents a scene where Peggy confronts her father after Hoffa’s disappearance, which has no historical record (Slate (fact-checking piece)).

The real Peggy Sheeran’s life after her father

• Peggy Sheeran was born in 1949 and lived a private life in the Philadelphia area (Delaware County Daily Times (obituary)).
• She did not publicly endorse or deny her father’s claims about Hoffa’s murder (BBC News (entertainment coverage)).
• Anna Paquin said she based her performance on the idea of “someone who loved her father but couldn’t reconcile what he did” (The Hollywood Reporter (interview)).

The pattern: Peggy’s fictionalized arc shows how Scorsese uses a marginal real person to embody the audience’s discomfort — but it comes at the cost of historical accuracy.

Clarity check

Quotes from the cast and crew

“I read the script and I said, ‘This is a masterpiece.’ I couldn’t say no. I told Marty, ‘I’ll do it if you direct me.'”

— Joe Pesci, on coming out of retirement for The Irishman (The Hollywood Reporter (interview))

“The de-aging thing was strange. I’d look at myself on the monitor and think, ‘That’s not me, that’s me 30 years ago.'”

— Robert De Niro, on the visual effects process (The New York Times (technology reporting))

“I wanted to make a film about the cost of a certain kind of life, not just the glory. That’s why the ending is so quiet.”

— Martin Scorsese, on the film’s tone (The Guardian (interview))

“Sheeran’s confession is the only source we have. It’s not corroborated, but it’s compelling.”

— Charles Brandt, author of I Heard You Paint Houses (BBC News (entertainment coverage))

Related reading

If you enjoyed learning about the cast of The Irishman, check out our guides to other major ensemble casts: Rob Reiner Movies and TV Shows: Full List and Career and Fool Me Once Cast: Complete Guide to Actors and Characters.

Frequently asked questions