Scene Stealers: Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny

My Cousin Vinny's shining star, without question, is an Oscar-winning portrayal from Marisa Tomei.

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Scott's Self-Indulgent Movie Podcast · Episode 902: Scene-Stealers: Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny

My Cousin Vinny is a movie miracle. There's a lot of reasons, hell any movie getting completed is a miracle, but an R-rated comedy that so perfectly executes on its premise from start to finish only comes along about once a decade. We take a New York tough guy who comes into a southern small town to defend his younger cousin from a murder rap, culture clash ensues, hilarity abounds, everyone goes home happy. Even lawyers, who are sticklers for inaccuracies in movies like this, cite this movie as perhaps the most accurate portrayal of a criminal trial procedure ever put to screen.

And then there's the cast. We've got Joe Pesci, hot off an Oscar for playing a terrifying Italian gangster in Goodfellas and being the but of the joke in Home Alone, a still baby-faced Ralph Macchio as Pesci's young cousin in trouble, and a series of capital C, Character Actors in the mix including our judge played by Fred Gwynne and our prosecutor played by Lane Smith. 

But our shining star, without question, is Marisa Tomei who plays Vinny's supportive but often abrasively demanding girlfriend Mosa Lisa Vito. A role she crushed so hard she got an Oscar nomination and win for Best Supporting Actress.

So why would I choose to highlight this performance? Well it rips for starters, but also because I think this is one of the rare times the Academy has been proven right by bucking its most frustrating tendencies. So first we're going to dig into what makes the role so great, and then why it's refreshing and awesome that Marisa Tomei won an Oscar for this.

The Role: Mona Lisa Vito

In case her name wasn't a dead giveaway, Tomei's Mona Lisa Vito is...a stereotype role. Taken at face value, she's the nagging girlfriend who constantly bugs her man for being less than he could be. Complete with an accent that would make the cast of Moonstruck blush.

The first thing Tomei knocks out of the park, is committing to this caricature as much as humanly possible. This should always be someone's first instinct is a culture clash comedy like this (i.e. if you're going to bring an Italian-American stereotype into the deep south, make Vinny and Lisa stand out as much as humanly possible). Don't underplay a thing. Every line should go to the rafters and you should only pull back if directed to do so. And they give her the hair and fashion to match. The blow out hair, the big jewelry, and the form-fitting dresses (especially the purple one she wears on the stand) all make her stand out like a sore thumb.

It's also important for this movie to work comedically because...LIsa is both our comedic lead and voice of reason.

Despite getting lead billing and being the character who has to grow and evolve throughout the course of the movie and trial, Vinny is the straight man in this movie. Yes he clashes with the judge, but he's not exploding at anyone, most because he can't. He has to be professional, keep people at ease and avoid offending anybody. But Lisa? LIsa can pop off whenever the hell she wants, often at Vinny right after he screws up.

Almost all of Vinny's biggest outbursts are prompted by Lisa pushing his buttons, going on about her biological clock ticking and Vinny's broken promises. She always amplifies pressure or highlights Vinny's faults, but because it's done in that charicature, it can be funny.

But what takes the performance from memorable to Oscar-winning has to be...her testimony.

"The" Moment: The Courtroom Scene

It's very rare for an a performer to have a singular moment or scene that earns them an award. Everything Everywhere All At Once walked away from Oscar night with three acting wins and only one of them , Ke Huy Quan's Waymond Wang, has one of those signature moments (the "in another life" scene). But when they happen, you can just feel it.

The construction of the scene is pretty brilliant. Vinny is in the tail end of his defense and Lisa is mad as hell as him, so he asks the sheriff to pick her up. Why? Because she is his surprise witness for the defense, specifically brought on to refute claims made by an FBI analyst. Already seems like an underdog move, and it's a question as to whether or not Lisa will even stay on the stand since she tries to leave multiple times.

And the prosecutor is on the same wavelength and decides to test out Mona's qualifications with a car question to stump her. And it looks like she's stepped in it when the prosecutor asks as what she dubs a "bullshit question."

That is until she unloads a monologue on him explaining how the question he asked was impossible by laying out every single model that he could've been talking about before giving the closest answer with an absurd level of specificity. She shuts up the prosecutor and Vinny is beaming like all of us who've ever gotten the chance on to dunk on someone who thought we didn't know something.

A promising start. But the follow-up is the real icing on the this Oscar-winning cake. Lisa is then asked about whether or not the defense's theory about what really happened adds up, and Vinny hands her photos from the crime scene. Then she appears to notice what Vinny noticed earlier and declares "The defense is wrooong."

That moment alone is so damn good because you can tell that she's hopeful, proud (both of her and Vinny), and ready to step up. And then she unloads the monologue that sets two young men free.

Mona Lisa Vito: The car that made these two, equal-length tire marks had positraction. You can't make those marks without positraction, which was not available on the '64 Buick Skylark!

Vinny Gambini: And why not? What is positraction?

Mona Lisa Vito: It's a limited slip differential which distributes power equally to both the right and left tires. The '64 Skylark had a regular differential, which, anyone who's been stuck in the mud in Alabama knows, you step on the gas, one tire spins, the other tire does nothing.

[the jury members nod, with murmurs of "yes," "that's right," etc]

Vinny Gambini: Is that it?

Mona Lisa Vito: No, there's more! You see? When the left tire mark goes up on the curb and the right tire mark stays flat and even? Well, the '64 Skylark had a solid rear axle, so when the left tire would go up on the curb, the right tire would tilt out and ride along its edge. But that didn't happen here. The tire mark stayed flat and even. This car had an independent rear suspension. Now, in the '60's, there were only two other cars made in America that had positraction, and independent rear suspension, and enough power to make these marks. One was the Corvette, which could never be confused with the Buick Skylark. The other had the same body length, height, width, weight, wheel base, and wheel track as the '64 Skylark, and that was the 1963 Pontiac Tempest.

Vinny Gambini: And because both cars were made by GM, were both cars available in metallic mint green paint?

Mona Lisa Vito: They were!

Vinny Gambini: Thank you, Ms. Vito. No more questions. Thank you very, very much.

[kissing her hands]

Vinny Gambini: You've been a lovely, lovely witness.

There's a lot lot to love here, whether it's Pesci being playful with his girlfriend on the stand, but there's so many little things that Tomei does here that make her character even more endearing. She talks directly to the jury like they're friends (aka the being stuck in the mud bit) adds in personal flair (the would never) and when she's done...she preens, smiles and stretches like a kid who knew the answer to the hardest question to teacher asked that day. Adorable, hilarious, perfect for this movie and plot. Give her the statue.....well funny thing about that.

The Win and the Conspiracy

As is often the case for comedic performances, Tomei was the odd woman out in the Best Supporting Actress category at the 1993 Oscars. The rest of the nominees that year were a collection of performances from acclaimed classy dramas like Howards End, Enchanted April or supporting roles in films by revered directors like Miranda Richardson in Eric Rohmer's Damage. And then there's Tomei whose performance is maybe bigger than all four other performances combined.

But despite the general bias against comedic performances...she won. The presenter, a somewhat shaky Jack Palance, fumbled a bit and called out her name. And then began the conspiracies....

Because Palace wasn't the most cogent, and Tomei's win was unexpected, a conspiracy theory quickly developed that Palace had read off the wrong name by mistake. The message being that Tomei's performance wasn't award worthy...because it was funny. Because funny performances don't win Oscars...like ever.

Typically Oscar wins for comedic performances come about because there's something besides being hilarious to the performance. Da'Vine Joy Randolph's win for The Holdovers last year is a great example. While Randolph's role is often comedic relief, or undercutting the lead performance by Paul Giamatti, it also has a number of serious and dark moments that humanize and add more drama to the role.

Meanwhile Ryan Gosling's entirely comedic performance in Barbie? Nominated...but not a winner.

Why is this? It's hard to pin it down without polling the entire Oscar-voting base, but if I had to venture a guess there's a vibe that dramatic acting is harder than comedic acting. It's the idea that invoking strong emotions that aren't laughter is very hard work that requires something extra.

And while I get the impulse, I think this is dumb. Acting is hard. Period. And being funny, successfully, requires a ton of timing, instincts and delivery to get right. Comedies are also just as collaborative as dramas and often require much more direct chemistry for the banter to hit (which Tomei and Pesci have plenty of in the film).

Here's something the Academy often stumbles with as well. Keeping longevity in mind.

Vindication: My Cousin Vinny? A Classic

Looking through Oscar winners from previous years is an...interesting exercise. Because for everyone "once in a lifetime performance" there's always a movie you completely forgot about at the top of the list or an actor/performance you didn't think about after the ceremony.

For instance, I think Will Smith has given a number of award-worthy performances in his career, and has some of the most iconic line deliveries in cinema history. But I honestly don't remember that much about King Richard (slap aside). I'm much more likely to remember quotes from Men in Black or even Bad Boys II than that movie. 

This isn't to say King Richard is a bad movie or Will Smith didn't deserve his Oscar. It's more to highlight that the Oscars, despite feeling declarative about the "Best" of a certain year of cinema, are a snapshot both of the moment and of opinions. 

Which means the misses become very obvious, often in the moment and right after, and years down the line. I audibly groaned when Green Book won Best Picture as it happened.

Point being, a lot of the Oscar winners are so safe or of that moment that they get lost to time and quickly forgotten...but Marisa Tomei and My Cousin Vinny, an unconventional choice if I've ever seen one, are still beloved.

Nowadays it seems silly to imagine anyone else winning the Best Supporting Actress Oscar that year. Because really, who was going to deliver a line as perfectly as "the defense is wrooong?"

By going for broke and leaning heavily into the caricature, Tomei created an Oscar-winning performance built to last.