30 minutes with …Film This article is more than 10 years oldInterviewRay Liotta: 'I like Brad. I admire his whole career'
This article is more than 10 years oldAlex GodfreyThe actor talks about his hitman role in his new film The Iceman, the Brad Pitt 'joke' that misfired – and his happy reunion with The MuppetsHey Ray, thanks for talking so early. Why 7:30am?
I get up at six to work out. I've done it since school, it's always been part of my life. It's a good way to take the edge off. I like getting up early; I've got a daughter, I'm a single dad.
OK. So, The Iceman. Your guy Roy (1) had enough on to fill his own film.
Yeah, he lived a colourful life himself, there are books about him. He was just as intense as Kuklinksi (2) was.
Roy was out chopping up bodies and stashing them all over town.
Yeah, they say he was on the ground floor of that, whether he was the first, I don't know, but that was something he was doing. He had a bar called the Gemini Lounge, and behind that was an apartment, and they'd either lure their victims there to kill them, or kill them some place else, bring them to the Lounge, hang them up so all the blood leaves their body, and then just chop them up as they're eating pizza and then go distribute the body parts throughout New York.
Nice.
Yeah. It's amazing that people do stuff like that, isn't it? It blows my mind. Right now there's probably some sick bastard doing something.
In an interview last month you said you were looking forward to meeting Kuklinski's wife at a screening.
She didn't show up. His daughter and son did, we talked. They said they really liked the movie. The son was too young when his dad got busted, I think, but I guess they knew through the trial and everything, what he did. But that would be an odd thing. 'Your dad's a hitman.' I'm not sure that's something you ever get over.
Something kicked off when you were promoting the film in the US a few weeks ago, when you supposedly called Brad Pitt a hack (3). What happened there?
No, that's crazy! You know what it was? Oh my god. Not all journalists are really journalists. They ask such stupid questions sometimes, especially the newer ones, and because … these people can't tell if you're joking around, you just can't have any sense of humour, you really can't. There have been a few things I've said jokingly that people made into something that isn't that at all. I'm just never gonna have a sense of humour about this stuff again. You just can't! You just can't! It's mind boggling to me. It really is.
Unless tone of voice is made clear in print, things don't always translate.
I make it clear. After you say something, you say, 'No I'm joking,' because you can see that all of a sudden they've got right to their fuckin' pens and papers. So you say, 'I'm joking, my gosh.' Because that movie (4) was a great experience. I like Brad, he was great in it, I admire his whole career. It's just crazy. If he ran into someone who tells him, then he's thinking that I said that. Unfuckingbelievable. That's why I hate doing this shit, I really do. Talk shows, this stuff. It's good to get a movie out there, so people become aware of it, but you really have to be … Oh, whatever, it is what it is.
OK. Let's move on to The Muppets (5) . What was it like getting back together with them?
Great. Especially doing it with Danny Trejo, because he's almost like an innocent (6) . He loved talking to the Muppets in-between, while they were setting up the next scene, he would talk to them like you and I are talking now.
How did you feel when Henry Hill (7) died last year? I know you didn't know him well, but having inhabited him for Goodfellas (8) it must have resonated.
Well, yeah … I never met him before the movie, I met him after he saw it. He was really a troubled guy. He definitely had addiction problems. Every few years or so I would run into him. One time we did a photo-shoot, a magazine was doing actors and their real-life counterparts, and they asked me to do something with Henry. And the poor guy at 3pm was just looped. Every time I saw him he was drunk. But he was a really nice guy, even when he was drunk he wasn't mean. Not that I saw.
When was the last time you spoke to him?
Years ago. I was in Venice, on the way to lunch, and I heard somebody call my name, and under a tree, drunk as a skunk, laying on the grass was Henry.
Did you have a conversation?
Yeah, 'Hey how you doing, take it easy...' As good a conversation as you can have with anybody who's looped.
The Iceman is out in the UK today.
Footnotes
(1) Roy DeMeo, leader of a Mafia crew suspected of killing up to 200 people.
(2) Mass murderer Richard Kuklinski, as portrayed in The Iceman by Michael Shannon.
(3) Examiner.com quoted him as saying "Brad Pitt's a hack," which numerous publications subsequently went to town on.
(4) Crime drama Killing Them Softly.
(5) Liotta stars in the forthcoming sequel The Muppets … Again! He previously appeared in 1999's Muppets From Space.
(6) Before becoming an actor, Danny Trejo spent years in correction facilities for assault, armed robbery and drug offences. Truly one of life's innocents.
(7) The mobster turned informant, who died last June, aged 69.
(8) Goodfellas' producer (Irwin Winkler) and writer (Nicholas Pileggi) are developing the show, potentially a prequel, for AMC.
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