Joe Pesci has come out of retirement for his first feature film role in over a decade, but catching the reclusive actor wasn’t easy.

Joe Pesci returned to star with Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in The Irishman, after having gone into an unofficial retirement that he was afraid to come out of. Pesci was approached 40 times before agreeing to join the Martin Scorsese film, with De Niro doing the majority of the convincing in reuniting the Raging Bull and Goodfellas group.

Martin Scorsese has collected a great ensemble of performers, many of whom are no strangers to the genre, for his long-awaited return to the realm of organized crime with the crime epic The Irishman. Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, and Joe Pesci are among the regular Scorsese colleagues on this murderer’s row.

Joe’s last on-screen appearance was almost a decade earlier in a 2010 film called Love Ranch, in which a couple visits “the first legal brothel in Nevada” and for which the term “forgettable” is used more in hope than expectation, and he would not be appearing in The Irishman under any circumstances.

Many reviewers have praised Pesci for his captivating portrayal of Russell Bufalino, playing a character of cunning, forceful calm that contrasts with his past violent hotheads in Scorsese’s Raging Bull, Casino, and his Oscar-winning performance in Goodfellas. While the new character is less intense than his prior Scorsese collaborations, Pesci nonetheless delivers a devastating Prince of Darkness look that will have you on the edge of your seat.

The Netflix film, which has an estimated budget of $159 million, employs groundbreaking de-aging technology on some of its actors in order to follow them in their younger form, rather than just employing younger actors to play the stars.

Martin Scorsese explained why Joe Pesci came out of retirement :

“These are individual choices and sometimes people don’t want to do something for different reasons. It could be, financial issues. You could have that — I’m not saying he did, right? It could be family issues. It could be health. It could be boredom from doing a certain kind of film. Playing a certain character. Ultimately, if Bob asks enough and he pushes enough, does this makes sense? Let me put it this way: It would have to be comfortable for [Pesci] to make it, you know?”

To be fair, the picture had a long gestation period. Between the time De Niro first read the novel on which the film is based, I Heard You Paint Houses, and the commencement of filming, 10 years had passed.

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While Pesci declines interviews, EW spoke with Scorsese and Irishman actor Robert De Niro about bringing back their old colleague. Their responses seem more like a series of clues than outright pronouncements, and there appears to be a combination of possible variables at work for Pesci — the chance to work with De Niro and Scorsese again, the chance to portray a new sort of mobster, and Netflix putting up its huge funds.

“I thought it was good, I was happy to see it,” De Niro remarked of seeing the child version of himself for the first time. “I joke that it helps to enhance my career for another 30 years.”

“I knew they were going to make them younger, but they’re still a little weathered, it wasn’t pure and clean and like a Ken doll kind of thing,” Ray Romano, who portrays mob-tied attorney Bill Bufalino in the film, remarked. “I thought they did a really good job with it,” he said, laughing that he hoped “they would’ve de-aged me a little bit, but they didn’t have the budget.” They stated, “They said out of $200 million, that’s it.”

Based on early reviews, the Irishman has earned unanimous praise and presently has a perfect 100 percent Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with numerous reviewers complimenting Pesci’s acting.

The Irishman will be available in limited distribution on November 1st, followed by its Netflix streaming launch on November 27th.