“I only had one concern.”
Goodfellas director Martin Scorsese has confessed that Ray Liotta almost wasn’t cast as Henry Hill in the mob drama.
“We were thinking of a few actors to play Henry Hill, and Ray was one of them.“, revealed Scorsese in an interview with Variety. ” I had only one concern. She knew he could do a role like he did in ‘Something Wild,’ but here I would have to carry the whole film“.
“She had to look like she came from that world. She had to have a certain innocence, also authority, but above all he needed charm as a counterbalance to the violence and atrocious behavior of the rest“.
“I loved Ray’s work, we got along very well whenever we met and I knew we could work together. But still… I was questioning it. And then something clicked in the place of him.”
That “something” happened when Scorsese, who was in Venice for ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’, met Liotta in a hotel.
According to the director, he had hired additional security after shooting the controversial film. When Liotta confronted the bodyguard team, Scorsese said that “handled it perfectly“, reacting”very calm, very calm” and “politely“to calm the situation.
After this meeting, Scorsese knew that Liotta was the right one for the role saying: “I took a little more time to think about it, but now I realize that I was just mulling it over.Scorsese revealed.That’s when I knew he would be Henry Hill“.
On February 25, Liotta was posthumously awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Speaking of the actor, who died last May at the age of 67, Scorsese said: “It was his fearlessness, combined with his control and intelligence, that made him so great.“.
Source: Fotogramas
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