Renowned American film director Martin Scorsese paid tribute to the late actor Ray Liotta in a heartfelt op-ed. Liotta, who starred in Scorsese's 1990 gangster film, Goodfellas, passed away last month at the age of 67.
Liotta passed away in his sleep in May while in the Dominican Republic, where he was one week into shooting his next film, Dangerous Waters. Liotta was perhaps best known for his role in Goodfellas, but despite the film's massive cultural impact Scorsese and Liotta never worked together on a film again.
According to Scorsese, this wasn't because of any feud or bad blood, and he regrets not having worked with the late actor again. In the op-ed for The Guardians, Scorsese writes, "We had many plans to work together again but the timing was always off, or the project wasn’t quite right. I regret that now. When I watched Ray as the divorce lawyer in Marriage Story – he’s genuinely scary in the role, which is precisely why he’s so funny – I remember feeling that I wanted to work with him again at this point in his life, to explore the gravity in his presence, so different from the young, sprightly actor he was when I met him." Scorsese also spends much of the op-ed complimenting the late actor, describing him as "fearless" and saying that he "never missed a beat."
He writes how at the time, Goodfella's was a very difficult film for the director to get made. The film came at what Scorsese describes as a low point in his career, saying that many of the major Hollywood studios didn't want to work with him and that casting Liotta in the role of real-life gangster Henry Hill was instrumental in the film's success. "The part required a rare combination of qualities. He needed to be dangerous. He needed to be disarming. He needed to be vulnerable," Scorsese wrote. "Within the context of the world we were dealing with, he had to be something close to an innocent, the guy who was always there, witnessing everything, along for the ride. And, it goes without saying, he needed to look and act like he might have come out of that world."
Scorsese also recounts a time when he found Liotta distraught in his trailer right before shooting a pivotal scene. Liotta had just learned that his mother was dying of cancer, but despite the terrible news, he was adamant that they shoot the scene. "We walked to the set together, everyone was told what was happening, and something extraordinary happened when we rolled. The scene was all about the euphoria of the characters after making their first big score, and everyone came together in an emotional bond around Ray: as everyone was laughing and celebrating, they were mourning with him at the same time," Scorsese writes. "Laughter and tears, tears and laughter … they were one and the same. Ray did the scene so beautifully, and then he left to be with his beloved mother. It was a rare experience."
Scorsese ended the piece by writing, "I wish I’d had the chance to see him just once more, too – to tell him just how much the work we did together meant to me. But maybe he knew that. I hope so." Some of Liotta's more recent roles include The Soprano's prequel film The Many Saints Of Newark and the HBO Max original film No Sudden Move.
Goodfellas is available on HBO Max and Netflix outside the US.
Source: The Guardian