Ray Liotta: This is not a comeback

Ray Liotta is back with six films this year

In this story: He turned down what? ’You get nervous' 'Very odd business’ RELATED STORIES, SITES

By Jamie Allen
CNN

(CNN) -- LL Cool J said it with passion in his ferocious rap, “Mamma Said Knock You Out.”

"Don't call it a comeback," LL opined. "I've been here for years."

Ray Liotta is hardly LL Cool J, but he can probably relate to the rapper’s words pretty well right about now.

Sure, the actor plans to have a total of six films featuring his work released this year, including "Blow" (New Line Cinema), the most recent to hit theaters. And sure, it’s more work than he’s had in years.

But don’t call it a comeback.

“I never went away, so where am I coming back to?” Liotta asks over the phone from Los Angeles, California, where he lives. It should be noted that his tone is light, not at all like some of the troubled characters he has played over the years.

Liotta, in fact, does allow that some of his 1990s roles weren’t as memorable as, say, his portrayal of a murderous gangster-turned-informant in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas” (1990). “Operation Dumbo Drop” (1995) anyone? “Muppets From Space” (1999)?

“Careers are very funny. I started out of the box really good,” he says. “And then there was a period in there where I was making movies, but some were successful – ‘Unlawful Entry’ (1992) or ‘Corrina, Corrina’ (1994) -- and some were not so. I decided to get a little more choosy and pull back a little.

“I don’t know -- maybe changing agents? Getting a manager, that helps. Who knows why,” Liotta says.

One thing is certain: Liotta is working, and he’s ready to take on new roles.

He turned down what?

Liotta, 45, was born in Newark, New Jersey. He studied acting at the University of Miami (Florida) before moving to New York to chase his thespian dreams. It wasn’t until a change of locations to Los Angeles, after 3 1/2 years of playing a nice guy on the NBC soap “Another World,” that his acting dreams started coming true.

Long known for playing the role of a psycho -- in “Something Wild” (1986) he was a convicted felon who uses violence to get his way; in “Unlawful Entry” he was a cop pulled straight from your nightmares; in “Turbulence” (1997) he decided to hijack a plane -- Liotta has recently been spreading his wings.

He plays a despicable FBI honcho who gets his comeuppance in “Hannibal,” opposite Anthony Hopkins. In “Blow,” the real-life tale of cocaine-dealing George Jung that hit theaters Friday, he plays the pot-bellied, loving Fred Jung, an aging father to his drug-selling son, played by Johnny Depp.

In what some might consider Liotta's coup de theatre of his “don’t call it a comeback” comeback, he turned down a role in the HBO mega-hit “The Sopranos.” For two years, the show came after him, but Liotta balked at joining the mob drama.

“Having done ‘Goodfellas,’ I kind of tackled that genre already,” he says.

’You get nervous'

One genre he hasn’t tackled -– until now -– is comedy. Liotta plays a small-time hood who gets conned and heartbroken in the laugher “Heartbreakers,” also starring Gene Hackman, Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt. It topped the box office in its debut weekend in March.

“Heartbreakers,” in fact, is a role that Liotta was willing to go the distance to land.

“I knew I was going to get resistance because it's a comedy,” he says. “So I was like, ‘Look, I'll come in and read. Just give me a chance.’

“I went in and read just like it was the beginning of my career, with the casting agent and the director in the room,” says Liotta.

Was he nervous?

“Yeah, you get nervous,” he says. “Those anxieties don’t leave, because you want the job.”

'Very odd business’

Landing the role for “Blow” was a different experience. Liotta and “Blow” director Ted Demme had spoken several times about working together (Liotta had already worked with Demme’s uncle, Jonathan Demme, in “Something Wild.”).

Johnny Depp, left, and Liotta in 'Blow'

Then the phone call came and Ted Demme asked Liotta if he wanted to play the father to Johnny Depp’s character. Depp is but eight years younger than Liotta.

“I was like, ‘What are you kidding me?’” Liotta says. “And then he explained to me that it takes place over a 30-year span. ‘You’re going to be 20 and then midlife and then you’ll age, get sick and die.’ As an actor, that's fun stuff to do.”

Liotta is having fun in real life, too. He married in 1997, and his wife, Michelle Grace, gave birth to the couple’s first baby, a girl, in December 1998.

“I’ve been working a lot, so work-wise it's going great. But it also takes you away from family. So any minute I have, I like to just hang out with my daughter,” he says.

Meantime, there are more movies and new roles on the horizon. Liotta has two big-screen films – “John Q” and “Narc” -- and the HBO feature “Point of Origin” all scheduled for release before the end of the year.

It’s not a comeback, Liotta insists, as much as it is a return to the spotlight.

“It’s a very odd business,” he says. “But you’ve got to put yourself out there. Things snowball after a while.”

'Blow': Funny, but nothing to snort at
April 5, 2001
Need a good laugh? See 'Heartbreakers'
March 23, 2001

‘Blow’

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