Ray Liotta spoke with Esquire Middle East last fall about still getting nervous, why people associate him with the villains he’s played, Martin Scorsese in Goodfellas, and more
I still get nervous before every role. I get myself worked up the day before we film. It’s part of my process. I need to lock myself in. I do all the homework, and all the worrying, at home, so by the time I get there, we can have some fun.
When I get to a set, I don’t want to worry about things other than doing it and just letting myself go, but this is something I’ve had to learn about my craft, and learn about myself, as I’ve gotten older.
In the beginning of my career, I held myself tighter and closer to who the character was. I don’t think I was ever a method actor, because it wasn’t like I was going around beating people up, but I stayed in the headspace I needed to be without actually acting it out.
As you get older, you trust yourself more. You trust that you’ve done it enough times to be comfortable with it. I really like this game, but I also just like doing the homework and getting ready for it, even as stressful as it still is.
The worst part at my age is learning the lines. But I’ve found that if it’s written well, the lines are right there in front of you. If it’s not, it can be challenging to be natural.
I’ve never been in a fight. It surprises people when I tell them that. After all, it’s bad guys that I’ve played that stand out in people’s minds.
People remember Henry Hill in Goodfellas opposite Bob De Niro, but I’ve played all kinds. I played a preacher, I played heart surgeons. Not just bad cops—good cops, too. And yet people always think of the intense characters first.
This isn’t unique to me, either. The great actors from generations before me like De Niro or Pacino always played softer roles, but people don’t seem to remember Bob in Stanley & Iris. They gravitate towards the intense characters. People like the bad guys.
I even did a movie in England one time with the Muppets. Me and Danny Trejo were singing and dancing along with Kermit the Frog. What I’m trying to say is, I’ve done it all at this point.
People seem to remember me for Tommy Vercetti in Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, too. That was fun, but it was challenging doing that for a few days. It was harder, because you could pick out the direction you wanted to go. There were a lots of lines that I had to say, If he went left, I’d have to say this. It was it was definitely challenging and long, but it was also an interesting, crazy character.
I don’t know if I’d call Tommy Vercetti iconic, though. I mean, some people do come up to me. People still seem to play it. It was made a while ago but every now and then people will come up and talk to me about it.
When I do play a bad guy, it’s fun, because it’s just not who I am. I can’t relate at all to any of them. It’s a blast to play those kinds of characters that are different from me, believe it or not, and I commit to that, just as deeply as I committed to dancing with Danny Trejo in that Muppets movie. I always give it my all.
There’s an urban myth that I was supposed to play Tony Soprano on the Sopranos at one point. Not true. There was another role I was offered, but it wasn’t Tony Soprano.
David Chase, who created the show, called me up when I was down in Virginia doing Hannibal, and offered me a role. He told me that this was the part he wanted me for, but I couldn’t have done it at the time. David didn’t give up either. He called me for another part, too, and I can tell you, the person who ended up doing it was great. I think he even got an award for it. But it just wasn’t meant to be.
David didn’t call me again for Many Saints of Newark, the Sopranos prequel. To tell you the truth, I’m the one who went after it. For some reason, my agent couldn’t get me in. Maybe they were concerned because I’d done Goodfellas, I don’t know.
After a lot of chasing, my agent finally got David on the phone and said, ‘just meet with him!’ I really wanted to work with this guy. David said ‘yeah, I’ll meet with him but there’s no guarantee that he’s going to get anything’. In the end I had to fly myself to New York and put myself up on my own dime and sat down with Alan Taylor, the director.
Me and Alan talked for a couple of hours and by the end of it, they had me. They said, well, we want you to do this role. I was so glad. I loved that first year of the Sopranos, and I loved David Chase. That’s why I wanted to get involved with this. I just wanted to work with him.
I ended up more involved than I expected. There’s even one thing they asked me to do because another actor dropped out, and they asked me to do it on the fly. They don’t want me saying much about it. That’s probably even too much, what I just said.
David Chase is a good writer. With The Many Saints of Newark, those lines came easy. You can tell he put time in with the script. It all adds up. You don’t have to be a Sopranos fan to enjoy this movie, you could have never seen it.
It’s good to work with somebody who knows what they want. David Chase would sit behind the monitor the whole time with Alan Taylor, the director, and you can see the guy’s a master.
Martin Scorsese is a little different. With him, he lets you figure it out.
Marty takes a long time casting, because he has to trust the people that that he hires, and every now and then, I’ll feel maybe a little funny and I’ll say something like, ‘I don’t know Marty. I don’t know. Maybe there’s another thing to do here.’ Marty will say, alright, let’s do it again.’
It’s great to work with a filmmaker that will let you follow your instincts, because you go up to the top of the building and you jump, and you know he’s going to catch you. You know working with somebody who loves this, and there’s nothing more exhilarating than working with somebody who is passionate about this make-believe game that we play.
I’ve only worked only a few actors who are like that. Only certain people have that love of doing g what we do, all the way down to their wardrobe. And I always try to work with those special few, because that energy is contagious.
Having Michael Gandofini on set of Many Saints of Newark playing his dad’s role was so moving for me. I honestly got goosebumps. He is absolutely tremendous.
Since the end of filming, I’ve talked to him a lot while doing press and photo shoots and whatnot. And he’s a really good, sweet kid. A really, really nice guy. He’s got his dad’s spirit.
I have a confession: I didn’t actually finish the Sopranos until the pandemic last year. At that time, when it was on, I wasn’t into connecting with shows.
I can never commit to something that comes on once a week at this time. Because there’s always something else going on or could be going on.
Now that I’ve finished it, can tell you now, even I’m probably the last person to come to this conclusion—The Sopranos is a great show. Give it a watch, if you haven’t.
The Many Saints of Newark is in cinemas September 30 across the Middle East