Ray Liotta Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters | GQ

there was a really pretty girl she asked me if I was going to the audition that night they wanted us to sing and dance I'm like jock from New Jersey well I mean singing dance the first thing I did I was a dead body on a soap opera here in New York then I was doing screen test and then I got a soap opera and I did that for three and a half years at 25 I quit the soap I moved to LA and I had an agent but for five years pretty much nothing happened but I would go to this this acting class that Melanie Griffith who was in something while she she and her then-husband Steven Bauer would go to him so I went to this guy Harry and I just studied and nothing would really happen for five years so I was 30 I went home for Christmas and my parents were saying you know they said well Melanie's in it why don't you call her up and ask my snow I'm not gonna get started like that having her do it and the in the acting class all the actors were saying that the guys that I studied with was saying did you go up for something wild you should go up for something wild you're you know you're right for it and blah blah blah well I called my agent my agent couldn't get me in I called Melanie up finally got the nerve up to do that and she said yeah of course they will ray and it turned out that she had a bad experience with the guy that played her husband so she asked Jonathan can I have put can I have so I want some say in it he said yeah of course of course so I went in and and met him on a Monday Thursday I get a call come in and read wit for Jeff Dan with Jeff Daniels who's also in the movie you white VIP just don't do it and do a scene there so I'm watching teats Johnny Carson that night at jeff daniels comes on and he was just so he was talking about woody and jack because he had just done the Purple Rose of Cairo and he had just done in terms of endearment two great movies and he was great in them so I'm selling my gosh you gotta read but this guy's tomorrow something I do push-ups and looking at my lines again I August and I went and read with him but because I was I guess when studying with air I was just ready and and wanting it and then I got a call and he told me that was the first one I just did my homework and was where I was supposed to be and you know he was with my wife and Melanie wasn't played my wife in it or I played her husband and so it was you know then intense [Music] no no but it has to do more with something personal that was going on at that time so when I did go to see it my mother was sick and she we couldn't stay and it just I've never seen it getting thrown out of baseball was like having part of me amputated I've heard that old men wake up and scratch it she legs that have been dust for over 50 years that was me i bat Mir a bat right-handed I throw left-handed Shoeless Joe batted left-handed and threw right-handed so I was I did they put me at USC with with the coach of USC who had won 13 national champions and there was this guy Donnie Buford who used to play for the Orioles he was his assistant so I was practicing left handed and obviously I thought they would just do camera tricks well the producers and the director came down one day to watch you know how I was coming along and they saw since I wasn't left in but they they batted really stilted back then so I thought we could get away with it and because it was only my third movie I wasn't going to say no this is what you have to do they said doesn't matter you you know she was Joe never came back from the dead you could bat right-handed and a bat left hand throw right head that so but no I've never seen it I wasn't script savvy and I couldn't imagine this guy digging up his cornfield to put a ball fall field there because he was hearing things it just sounded so silly to me I just didn't didn't get it but you know I learned quickly that I was wrong and what really convinced me was because James Earl Jones was in it I knew Kevin because we all used to hang out playing paddle tennis and when nothing was happening for any of us Andy Garcia Steven Bauer they're all guys that ended up doing movies and we had this group before anything happened and that's what we saw I knew Kevin and then our Burt Lancaster is gonna be in this like is well I guess they think it's good Oh Who am I to say tis silly no it's Iowa Hill Pileggi who wrote the script he also wrote the book when I got the call it was called wise guy but because there was a movie wise guy they they they somehow came up with Goodfellas and he Nick when I got it he gave me all the tapes that he had of Henry when he was interviewing him for the book so I listened to that over and over and over again it was like little cassettes so I would you know put it in the car and and cuz it kept the movie kept getting pushed so I was just in Jersey just just waiting at my house and I would listen to the tapes and and Andry hill while he was telling his story was eating potato chips and it's so annoying to listen to something chomping somebody chomping on potato chips while they're telling stories about their life now I asked Marty should I should I meet him I wanted to meet him but but they didn't want me to do that so I did it so again you know the way that I've learned is just doing homework the more you think about something the more it's gonna mean something to you when I mean something to you hopefully to mean something to an audience [Laughter] [Laughter] funny guy shows a great storyteller and he told the story about how what we did for the funny guy thing had happened to him when he was at a restaurant or something so he was telling that story and morning said you know what it would be great to put it where they put it in the movie and saw it first what we do is we just improv dit and improv him probably improv and then when when Marty was happy with the way it was they put it in stone they wrote it out and that's what we ended up doing I mean we played around with it at the end the ending was a little there was some improv there that we did but it was great it was great you know Bob kind of kept a distance kind of like how Jimmy probably was with with Henry but I mean like I can't I don't know that for sure but I did this charity thing the other night and a cop came up to me and he said he was an undercover cop that knew all those guys so and he said he said like the movies extremely accurate but I've worked with Marty doing it and Nick pileggi who did the thing I wrote the book you know they didn't make stuff up tell me tell me what's funny kids'll caddy its autonomy it was fun it was just really fun because there's there's something very energizing about playing pretend with people who really are in it and you know you don't realize the cameras or any of that stuff you're just doing what you have to do I mean that's what it's all about so it's it's great doing that and then you know I'm working with Scorsese us you know you know you could jump up to a building off a building and you knew he was gonna catch him because he's just just an unbelievable director yeah I didn't want to do that one at all because everyone knew since Sinatra I don't sound like him I don't look like him the only thing we have in common were both from Jersey and we both say the F word I I'm gonna laugh instead of cry I'm gonna take the town and turn it upside down but originally his daughters asked me to do the miniseries when they used to have miniseries on TV and I just same reasons no no I don't want to do that so they asked me if I wanted to do the HBO thing and I just said no and and they asked me again no no I don't want to do it and I'm realized wait what I keep saying no to this because I was afraid of judgment one of the things that you can't be as an actor if you're afraid of what people are gonna say then you know and he was just such an iconic and you know everybody but not everybody heard or knew this story so I just said alright yeah okay I'll do it I'll just just I'm an actor and and I there were so there's so many books on him I read lots of books I listened to his music constantly i lip-sync although I sang out loud to a Frank Sinatra imitator so wasn't even him because his music was too expensive at the time it probably still is I first listened to the music at Capitol Records in LA where he recorded something you know a few of his albums so just being in there just seeing what it was like because I was never in never listen to anyone making music before [Music] and God I live which I assume starts oh my god he is just unbelievable because to me that was my parents music and then I would put on another station or cassette I just had to take it out right away because there's nothing as rich and emotional and and the story that they tell within the song as what he did he's just unbelievably great [Applause] [Music] Ridley Scott directed at another great director so when when it came time to do that scene uh so Ridley how we gonna do this because I I played a heart surgeon in a movie way before that and I would I just became fascinated with watching heart surgeries and then I also watched someone's brain that you know that his head was open and he was a awake while they were operating on this guy's brain it was at a VA hospital in LA so I said really all right so I know obviously I have to be awake because we have the scene but how how do you want me to play this he says I don't know so I just started thinking I'll just pretend that the stuff that they gave me was made me made it goofy and and and you know like you're a bit high I was doing that and laughing and then when he feeds me said what do you what do you want them to you know because he cooks my brain and I said give me dark meat chicken because I don't you know dark weak chicken it's hard to chew and so they had dark meat chicken on the day and you know I'm chewing eating my brain you know and I'm dumb chewy because it's not an easy thing that for at least for me and a lot of people got sick I heard I was doing a movie in Canada when the movie opened and I heard that you know people some just left even when I watched it I said oh my god that's just disgusting but it was fun to do there was scenes were they were the green thing and they had these tennis balls or ping-pong balls kind of like so they I don't know how they do what they do but yeah we did have to do that it was fun I mean if you're asked like my best friends or my sister you know like I can crack them up very easily and I went I said they told me about it they said but the director wants you to audition for it and I saw don't care so I went in in audition for David Mirkin who was one of the on the ground floor of The Simpsons and still is and he's just a really really good director who just has a really great comic guy so I got it and you know the script was really good the best thing out of all of that was I would gene Hackman was like one of them you know somebody that I would like to be so I would go on days and just watch him him work well later so we became just a minute like like a couple months ago I was here and this woman comes out of the and taps me it's a great leader I said yeah he said gene Hackman's here he wants to say hi and I was like just floored by it I remember I was presenting at the Golden Globes and I looked up and there's gene Hackman in the middle and he gives me a wave and I was like wow that's just unbelievable to me that that was the aside from from playing pretend with that stuff it was just getting to know him was was was really great when I come in from outside right it's just a nickname you've let your own daughter seduce me do you have any idea how much therapy you people need I've been really fortunate to work with with Al Pacino De Niro Gene Hackman Robert Duvall Anthony Hopkins Vanessa Redgrave I mean these are people that are just unbelievable as far as I'm concerned and how I would like my career to go it was really well-written the director great guy passed away really really really really good director and the story is just incredible I mean he was one of the first major I mean he was getting all the these drugs from Escobar he was like the American contact I think so was just incredible the lifestyle that he led but I thought one of the better things that Johnny did it was really fun working on that I know what you're up to not everything but I get the picture and I don't care I don't like it it's not what I would have chosen for you but it's your life it's got nothing to do with me I couldn't stop you if I wanted to could I probably not well but it was sad because I know what he's up to so as a father you're not exactly thrilled with you know your son being a big drug dealer I remember the scene where I'm outside and the big mansion and you know I I definitely get what's up and let him know that was I really liked that movie people still talk about that one kind of like something I've done before I mean obviously a different kind of person and I want to get Bradley Cooper to it to a level so I could use him we were able to do a combination of the script and just adding things but the way he shot it was very fly on the wall and I did this movie narc and that was very much like that were they just camera moved you never knew what they were where it was so you were just playing you know pretend with with that there wasn't like the your shop and my shot and a lot of these were just done and that one was just moving the camera around you can't walk in here yeah I can no you can't what's that it's my house look you assume that I have a warrant and I'll assume that your mother has papers okay this won't take long come on coffee please start upstairs okay my babies my babies yeah tonight we're not gonna stop very cool dude yeah he can let Scotty be quiet I guess those are what people remember there's something about the bad guy I mean even other actors who've played like intense people they've done other types of movies but there's just something about those kinds of roles that stick in people's minds Iseman yeah that what was amazing about that is that's a true story and when I started doing homework on that and seeing what's kuklinski did and how ruthless and brutal he was but Lloyd the Mayo the character it was a real guy a real mobster I read some of those books about him and he was it was just as intense as kuklinski he just didn't want to get caught so we they would hire him to do the hits what do you want closing the porn lab I'm sorry but you're out of a job you could follow orders you got everything the game via Michael Shannon what was great in that but the scene and in the car in the back that was my last scene and I had a flight to leave that night and it kept getting longer and longer and I kept getting more and more mad so there's you know there's all different methods to get to where you need to be for it for the movie and with with that I remember I was just mad I just wanted to get out there and I put the gun so in his face that once it went away and was just similar I took the gun away there was an imprint of the barrel on his face but that was just because I was mad cuz I wanted to get out they would talk to your friend Terry seems to think that you and I are friends I can't imagine what you've been telling them I just like the idea of playing a bisexual cop that that is on the take but also loves his group of cops that he works with was only 13 episodes so that appealed to me Jennifer Lopez did a lot of people knew so I knew people that were you know would be tuned into it and also because the part that I played I feel extremely guilty because my daughter killed herself so when when they cast my daughter to do it she would she would come but she was coming to him in my mind I was imagining her so it really like resonated to like pretend you know that something horrible happened and and because those scenes were extremely extremely more emotional when I did them because of the guilt of you know what the character was going through so there were just a lot of levels and that were that were there I had to fight for them and and because I thought they were missing the boat sometimes of what you know having such a great character there's like a lot of things that you guys could explore in this that sticks with the cop show that they finally got to but then Jennifer just didn't want to keep doing it because she had so many other things going on so I mean in doing this weekly series is it's it drained it's a lot of work when I got to play a lawyer the null bound back I really liked his the previous things that he's done and the script was just incredible it's just such a moving well told story he in terms of the way he directed it and it was just a fun part in terms of playing I'm what I'm Susannah driver Scarlett Johansson they they they're married they go through they want to get divorced he goes and and meets me and I'm the type of lawyer who's like we're gonna have to do this we're gonna have to do that and everything how what it's not it wasn't smooth and and nice it was like if we're gonna do this we're gonna have to play hardball I don't want to have that kind of divorce I want to do it we'll just you know work it out ourselves all right fine he goes to Alan Alda who's who goes to court with him and Scarlett Johansson has Lord Dern as her lawyer and she's modeled after a real intense lawyer so he realizes that only be Alan all does not up up to piss enough to go against Laura Dern so he comes back to me and hires me and then we just just a few scenes but they were just really really well-written it seems the whole thing is really really good

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Id: cDdJKlDZJSc

Length: 23min 43sec (1423 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 04 2019