It's not often you get rub shoulders with some of the greatest actors of a generation.

But that's exactly what happened to Rob Salamida, who many know as the co-founder of the Spiedie Fest and owner of a famous Spiedie Company.

It started when he got a call from his cousin, actor Craig Vincent, asking him to appear in the Martin Scorsese mob film "The Irishman."

"I said 'no, I don't really have the time' and I'm not a big New York City guy and all that," Salamida said. "Then he said a couple of weeks later, 'I'm going to be down there and maybe I can get you in as an extra.' I said 'no, that's not me, I can't do that.' "

Salamida decided to give it a shot, never expecting to actually appear in the film.

But about an hour in, he shares a courtroom scene with Al Pacino as famed Teamster leader Jimmy Hoffa, and Robert De Niro, who plays hitman Frank Sheeran.

De Niro bumps into him on the right of the screen while he's holding a clipboard.

Salamida recalls De Niro giving him a bit of advice.

"We shake hands and he says 'hey, when you hold that, tip it a little.' Whatever he said, I was in awe," Salamida said. "And later, Craig said 'jeez, not only do you meet Bob De Niro the first day, you take direction from Bob De Niro.' And that would explain why all the extras were looking at me like 'who is this guy?' "

But the film includes even more ties to the area. The early scene where mobster Russell Bufalino, played by Joe Pesci, first meets Sheeran actually happened at a truck stop in Endicott, in the village Bufalino called home.

"It was surreal because I had always heard the name Russell Bufalino and his underlings were always around the triple cities, and those names always seemed to surface in one way or another," said Craig Vincent, actor in "The Irishman."

Vincent appears in the film as Teamster agent Ed Partin, the man who helped convict Hoffa. He also appeared in "Casino" as the cowboy in a famous scene with De Niro and Pesci.

"It definitely is a surreal experience working with those guys because here are your idols, at least mine growing up, and my reason of wanting to become an actor in the first place," Vincent said.

While Scorsese directed countless mob hits in the past, Salamida said this film's message stuck with him the most.

"Maybe in other movies it was glorified, but he wanted to tell you family is more important, and not power," said Salamida.

"The Irishman" leads the Critics' Choice Awards with 14 nominations.