Martin Scorsese has rave reviews for his experiences working with Ray Liotta.
The Queens-born director paid tribute to Liotta, who died last month at age 67, in a new piece for The Guardian, writing that the actor “never missed a beat” on the set of their classic mobster movie “Goodfellas.”
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“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,” Scorsese wrote.
“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.”
The Newark-born Liotta portrayed real-life New York City gangster Henry Hill in 1990′s “Goodfellas,” starring in a cast that also included Robert De Niro, Joe Pesci and Lorraine Bracco.
Scorsese remembers being impressed by Liotta’s supporting performance in “Something Wild,” but says he believes he knew Liotta was the right man to lead “Goodfellas” after he observed the actor react with “quiet authority and a real elegance” when he got blocked by security at the Venice Film festival.
“On Goodfellas, we were working improvisationally in most scenes, and many members of the team had known each other and worked together for years, including my mother and my father,” Scorsese wrote. “Into that walked the new guy, Ray Liotta, and he never missed a beat. It felt like we’d worked together for years.”
A cause of death has not been released for Liotta, who also portrayed Shoeless Joe Jackson in the 1989 baseball classic “Field of Dreams” and had a prominent role in last year’s“Sopranos” prequel film “The Many Saints of Newark.”
In their own tributes to Liotta last month, Pesci said, “God is a Goodfella, and so is Ray,” while De Niro said, “He is way too young to have left us. May he rest in peace.”
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