Ray Liotta Quotes

"It would be nice to do a movie where I didn't have to choke the girl to get her."

(when asked why he did the voice of Tommy Vercetti for the video game "Grand Theft Auto: Vice City") "For the money."

"Something Wild was my first movie. I was in an acting class and on a soap opera for three-and-a-half years in New York - I moved to L.A. at 25 and nothing was really going on for like a five-year period. I was still in acting class, I was in class all through Goodfellas actually, and I talked to some of the guys and they said, "Are you up for this movie, Something Wild?" and I said, "No." But I decided I really wanted to be up for it even though [Jonathan] Demme had already narrowed it down to three people. I'd been to college with Melanie Griffith's then-husband Steven Bauer and I called her up and said, "y'know, can you get me in and I felt weird about it, but here I am, thirty years old and I haven't done anything yet and I'd read the script and felt like I could do that as well as anyone out there so why not me?" She got me in, she insisted that Jonathan see me, and it just worked out with me." - On landing Something Wild.

"Nothing. It's just make-believe. I don't think it's good to personalize it. If you do, it's limiting. The actors that do personalize it are the ones that always seem the same in every movie they do. I don't really look at it in any kind of deep psychological way that I learn something about myself. Aside from taking up the acting challenges, I'm really glad I took on the challenge of playing Sinatra, as scary as it was. I learned somewhat about myself - that I could do it and I knew what was bothering me - the fears that I had." - On what he learns about himself through the characters he plays.

"I wasn't crazy about the way things were going. I wanted to be a little more proactive with my career instead of waiting for something to come to me, so I formed a production company with my wife [Michelle Grace] and a partner, Diane Nabatoff, and changed agents - I really just wanted to clean house and start fresh. The first script I got was Narc and I really responded to it; it reminded me of a 70s type movie, I really liked the characters, I didn't anticipate the ending. I wanted to go that way and really get proactive with my career - take some control in it and redirect it in a direction that I liked." - On Narc.

"I only did it to get my foot in the door and because you never know what can happen." - On his first film, The Lonely Lady.

"Bad guys stand out in people's minds. If you think about De Niro or Pacino, you're not going to stay Stanley and Iris, you are not going to say Author! Author! Even with Brando, you are going to say The Godfather or Street Car. It is the edgier characters that are remembered. That's my rationalization."

"What I really am is a homebody. I was a homebody even before I had a family. My days are filled with home stuff."

"It's the oily skin. It gives you zits when you are a teenager, but then it doesn't wrinkle as you get older." [on why he looks a lot younger]

"People have all these preconceptions about me. Whereas if you look at the roles, Henry Hill was the nicest guy in Goodfellas! I was a nice guy too in the comedy Heartbreakers. And I was a really sweet father to Johnny Depp in Blow!"

"I am mostly Scottish and a little bit Italian!"

"I've only been in one fight in my whole life... in 7th grade, yet everyone thinks I'm a maniac."