Ray Liotta
Ray Liotta
Raymond Allen "Ray" Liottais an American actor, film producer, and voice actor. He is best known for his portrayals of Henry Hill in the crime-drama Goodfellasand Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams. For his second feature film, Jonathan Demme's Something Wild, Liotta received a Golden Globe nomination and won the Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Supporting Actor. He has since become a highly-regarded screen personality, appearing in leading or supporting roles in films such as Unlawful...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth18 December 1954
CityNewark, NJ
CountryUnited States of America
The first script I got was Narc and I really responded to it; it reminded me of a '70s type movie, I really liked the characters, I didn't anticipate the ending.
There's a personal side to me of challenges as an actor that I like to take on myself.
It came time to go to college. My dad said, go wherever you want. Take whatever you want. He just really believed in getting out and being exposed to different things.
Not like Chinese food, where you eat it and then you feel hungry an hour later.
I didn't start acting until I was in college, which was in the 70's.
My dad said, 'Go to college and take whatever you want.' So, I went to the University of Miami. When I got up to the line at registration, I saw that you had to take math and history. I said, 'There's no way I'm taking math and history.' And right next to it was the line for the drama department.
People have all these preconceptions about me. Whereas if you look at the roles, Henry Hill was the nicest guy in 'Goodfellas!' I was a nice guy too in the comedy 'Heartbreakers.' And I was a really sweet father to Johnny Depp in 'Blow!'
The independent-minded movies - it's always an uphill battle to get them made and seen. You do what you can, and go out there after and try to tell people about it, but at the end of the day, that's all you can do.
The best way to learn anything is through a movie, because you have so much time to do it and you have great people teaching you.
You could just do independent movies, but I like bigger kind of studio movies, at least some of them.
Man, I did love this game. I'd have played for food money... I used to love traveling on the trains from town to town. The hotels... brass spittoons in the lobbies, brass beds in the rooms. It was the crowd, rising to their feet when the ball was hit deep. Shoot, I'd play for nothing!
You know, it was a small, independent movie and with Paramount becoming involved, it was obviously a good thing, but you can't put a round peg in a square hole.