In the aftermath of Ray Liotta’s death at age 67, many filmmakers and fans have paid tribute to the actor by remembering his iconic role as Goodfellas protagonist Henry Hill. Co-stars Robert De Niro and Lorraine Bracco recalled their experiences working alongside him, and filmmaker Martin Scorsese, who helmed Liotta’s star-making mob film, called him “so uniquely gifted, so adventurous, [and] so courageous as an actor” in a statement to Vanity Fair.
Given Scorsese’s habit of repeatedly working with the same stars, many wondered why Liotta never reunited with the filmmaker. “I don’t know, you’d have to ask him,” Liotta told The Guardian last September. “But I’d love to.”
It appears that the feeling was mutual. In a piece for the same publication published Monday, Scorsese writes that the pair “had many plans to work together again but the timing was always off, or the project wasn’t right,” adding, “I regret that now.”
Scorsese adds that he found Liotta to be “genuinely scary” in his role as a steely divorce lawyer in 2019’s Marriage Story. “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,” Scorsese writes. “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.”
Earlier in his tribute, Scorsese praised Liotta’s multifaceted nature, which he tapped into when playing the “dangerous, disarming, vulnerable” Henry Hill. “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 recalls. “Into that walked the new guy, Ray Liotta, and he never missed a beat. It felt like we’d worked together for years.”
The Oscar winner also shares a moving behind-the-scenes story from Goodfellas. On the day that Liotta shot a pivotal scene with De Niro and Joe Pesci, the actor learned that his mother was dying. “I remember that he kept saying: ‘She adopted me and raised me, she’s the sweetest woman there is–why does she have this terrible cancer? Why?’” Scorsese writes. “I told him that he had to go to be with her, but he was adamant: he wanted to do the scene before he left.”
Scorsese says that “everyone came together in an emotional bond around Ray: as everyone was laughing and celebrating [in the scene], they were mourning with him at the same time. Laughter and tears, tears and laughter…they were one and the same,” he writes, adding, “Ray did the scene so beautifully, and then he left to be with his beloved mother. It was a rare experience.”