Watch out: Ray Liotta, as most of us first saw him, as the stalker in "Something Wild"
"Killing Them Softly" is a crime movie that dares to take some truly audacious risks.
The Brad Pitt picture, opening Friday, is full of sex and drugs and violence - some of it startlingly graphic even in this post-Tarantino age. And it uses gangsters and their backroom poker games as a rough, sardonic metaphor for Wall Street power brokers and their insider deals.
But here's its biggest gamble - it casts the often cold and dead-eyed Ray Liotta as, well, a schnook.
"I'm always looking for something where I'm not the aggressive one, you know?" Liotta says. "I've played a few of those parts for sure. Here, though, he's a nice guy who runs a card game and made a mistake years ago. And now because of that he's getting blamed for something he didn't do... It's not often I get the play the more laid-back guy."
No, not often.
Liotta, 57, made his film debut playing Pia Zadora's rapist in the infamous "The Lonely Lady" in 1983, then followed that up co-starring as Melanie Griffith's psycho boyfriend in "Something Wild." His fifth movie was "Goodfellas."
He's done other things too, of course. He's very proud of "Dominick and Eugene," a 1988 drama where he played a medical student with a mentally disabled brother. He was also Shoeless Joe in "Field of Dreams," and a doting dad in "Corrinna, Corrinna."
But "laid-back" is not the sort of character the Jersey-bred actor is usually called upon to play.
It might be closer to who he really is, though - not very excitable, not overly talkative, just taking things a little bit as they come.
His life could have been a lot more unsettled. Born in Newark in 1954, he was quickly put up for adoption (although he's often assumed to be all-Italian, he says he later found out his ethnic background is mostly Scottish). But Mary and Alfred Liotta saw him at the orphanage when he was just six months old and took him home to Union, where he spent most of his childhood throwing a ball around.
"I played pretend games as a kid, army, whatever, but I never wanted to be an actor," he says. "Basically I just played sports all the time. Basketball, baseball, football, you know, whatever the season was. But I remember senior year, basketball had stopped and the drama teacher asked me if I wanted to be in the play. So, alright, I'm not doing anything, I'm used to hanging around anyway, sure, I'll be in the play."
And then he stepped on stage for the first time, and realized that was what he wanted to do with his life?
"Nah," he says. "I didn't like it at all. I didn't like anything about it. What happened afterward was, I went off to the University of Miami... I thought I'd stay a year, do liberal arts. But I looked at the requirements, and it sounded really hard. And then I looked over and right next to the liberal-arts department was the drama department. And there was this really cute girl in line to register..."
And with that, the University of Miami had a new drama major.
Liotta turned out liking it, much to his surprise, and after four years headed back to New York, to begin his career. He got a job bartending at the Shubert theaters - if you ever bought an overpriced chardonnay at intermission, he was probably the blue-eyed guy who sold it to you - and started going out on auditions.
Within six months, he'd gotten a gig on a soap opera. Within a few years, he was a regular movie presence, a striking new actor with young Tony Curtis looks and a tightly coiled intensity.
Liotta in "Goodfellas" -- not a bad guy. At least, compared to the monsters around him.
1990's "Goodfellas" was the big breakthrough, although it didn't come easily. Liotta auditioned several times for Martin Scorsese, who wanted him but had to convince the studio executives, who were pushing for a name. ("I think they would've rather had Eddie Murphy," Liotta later joked.) When he did finally get the part, Liotta says, he was so nervous he didn't eat for three days.
The shoot was tough. Scorsese's camerawork was more intricate than ever, with complex travelling shots. There were a number of characters, and lots of improvisation (the classic "Whaddaya mean, I'm funny?" scene reportedly sprang from a run-in Joe Pesci had with a real-life wise guy early in his career, when he and buddy Frank Vincent were a musical act playing mob joints in Bergen County).
"It was a weird experience for me, because my mom was really sick, so that was going on, and really tempered what I was feeling at the time," Liotta says. "But that movie, it's amazing, it definitely has a life of its own, and it's only grown over time. People watch it over and over, and still respond to it, and different ages come up, even today, teenagers come up to me and they really emotionally connect to it."
One of the reasons, Liotta thinks, is that for all his sleaziness and stupidity, his character really isn't a villain.
"The thing about that movie, you know, Henry Hill isn't that edgy of a character," Liotta says. "It's really the other guys who are doing all the actual killings. The one physical thing he does do, when he goes after the guy who went after Karen - you know, most audiences, they actually like him for that."
But even if Liotta wasn't playing an out-and-out psycho, the film helped type him as a tough guy. Although he got occasional, break-the-mold chances - playing Sinatra in the TV movie "The Rat Pack," a beleaguered V.A. hospital doctor in "Article 99" - more and more his movies ("Cop Land," "Unlawful Entry," "Narc") have him playing dirty cops.
There have been a lot of dark parts, and Liotta's willing to admit they take their toll.
"When you're doing it, you try and stay in it, and in that mood as much as possible," he says. "It can get to you. I'm not a violent person and to play someone like that, and try to put yourself in their head -- I've done movies where at the end of the shoot, I'm definitely exhausted."
Liotta in "Narc," a strong return.
At least, though, it's often been for a good cause, and a decent film. Harder to take may be other pictures, like "Hannibal" (in which Liotta had his brains fried up and eaten by Dr. Lecter). Or "In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale," where he played an evil wizard in fetching robes. Or any of the other, better projects Liotta has worked on recently, which have still had to scramble to find funding, or attention.
"It's changed so much from when I started in the `80s," he says. "I was lucky in that they were still doing a lot of independent movies, and movies with some substance. The dynamic then, and what people were saying, I don't know, it was a lot different. 'Something Wild,' 'Dominick and Eugene' - I doubt they'd make those today... 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."
"Killing Them Softly" gives Liotta a rare, vulnerable role.
Well, not quite all.
You can still look for the best, most interesting movies you can find. ("I just finished one I'm really proud of, `The Identical,' where I play a preacher.") You can take joy in the films you've made that have already become classics, and look forward to the ones that might be ("Andrew Dominik, who did 'Killing Them Softly,' I wanted to work with him for years.") You can spend time with your family (Liotta, divorced since 2004 from actress Michelle Grace, has a daughter, Karsen.)
And you can still get a kick out of that career you found one day in Miami, when you spied a pretty girl, standing in line.
"The business is rough, no matter where you're at in your career," he says. "There's always some reason for them to say no to you - that part of it is horrible... But the job itself - making people believe that what they're seeing is really happening - that's still a challenge, putting that puzzle together. You know, what can I say, I still like playing pretend. And it's sure a fun way to make a living."
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