Martin Scorsese has opened up about his regret over never working with Ray Liotta again after Goodfellas.
Liotta, who played Henry Hill in the 1990 crime classic, died last month at the age of 67.
He never featured in any of Scorsese’s subsequent films. Scorsese did try and cast him in the 2006 Oscar-winner The Departed, but a scheduling conflict meant Liotta had to turn down the role.
In an essay for The Guardian, Scorsese paid tribute to Liotta, and expressed his remorse at never finding the right project to work with his one-time collaborator again.
“We had many plans to work together again but the timing was always off, or the project wasn’t quite right,” he wrote. “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.”
He added: “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.”
In 2021, Liotta was asked about why he had never worked with Scorsese again, telling an interviewer that they would “have to ask [Scorsese]”.
However, he stated that he would “love to” do so.
