INTERVIEW

The Crimson spoke last week with Actor Ray Liotta, who was in Boston to promote Dominick and Eugene, in which he plays Eugene, the medical student brother of the retarded Dominick, played by Tom Hulce (see accompanying review).

Crimson: Did you always know you wanted to act?

Liotta: No, never. I didn't really want to go to college, and my parents said, "Just go, take whatever and try to feel what you want to do." So I went down to Miami, took drama and saw what that was about and decided I liked it. I read constantly about what other actors were saying and what they do, and I would watch their work. And I realized they don't have anything I don't have. They just had a break, that was it. So it really wasn't until college that I decided. I'm 33, by the way, in case you're wondering.

Crimson: You have worked on stage, in television and in films How do they compare?

Liotta: TO me, it's all the same thing. You have a story that you have to fulfill, and that's it. It just so happens to be a different medium. The thing about stage and movies is that is seems you get deeper things to play. It's not all formula stuff like TV gets to become.

Crimson: Before acting in movies, you spent three years on the soap opera Another world. Did you find soap operas formulaic?

Liotta: No, well, the formula is the soap itself, and it's all people, you know, fooling around on each other and all these different kind of things. So there's a certain kind of story, but there are changes from week to week. One week you drink coffee and the next you have tea. I mean, it's somewhat of a change. No, I really dug the soap. It was a great training ground. Because once I committed to doing this, I just absorbed everything I could. I would say it helped a lot.

Crimson: How did you go from television into film?

Liotta: What happened was, I was on a series, and it was cancelled, and a bunch of my firends were up for this movie, Something Wild. And one of them said, "Are you up for this?" And I said, "No. I'm not." So I called my agent, who at that time was a very powerful agent, and he got me in because it was already being cast, and they sent an assistant. I thought, "I'm sick of being turned down by people who don't really have any artistic sense at all. I would rather be turned down by the director or at least by the regular casting people, never mind the assistant." So I had nowhere else to go, so I called Melanie [Griffith, the star of Something Wild]. I went to college with her ex-husband Steven Bauer, who was in Scarface. So I called her and said, "Melanie, I would really like to get in on this. I think I'm right for it." And she said, "Yeah, Jonathan [Demme, the film's director] is just at the end of casting, but I'll make a call." And she did, and that's just what happened. There is no right way to do it or wrong way. Whatever gets you in.

Crimson: In Something wild, you played an obsessively jealous ex-husband, and now in Dominick and Eugene, your second film role, you play a sensitive, hard-working medical student. How did you manage to avoid getting typecast?

Liotta: You wait. I waited after Something Wild. I was offered a lot of crazy-type guys, and I didn't want to do that anymore because I still study. I still go to class, and you always try new and different things. You know, in this business you get typed, and you're stuck in that place forever. So I just waited.

Crimson: How would you describe Dominick and Eugene?

Liotta: What the movie is about and what it's saying is that it's all right to show your emotions and how you feel about things. Just because [Dominick]'s my brother and a male doesn't mean that we can't be close, and hopefully that's in a sense unique. You know, we lie in bed together. As an actor, it's fun to do things that are new and challenging.

Crimson: Did you follow the script closely during the shooting.?

Liotta: Yeah, when you have a guy who has won two Academy Awards writing [screenwriter Alvin Sargent, who won Oscars for Ordinary people and Julia], you don't want to mess with his words too much. If anything, the things that might not have been there are the connections that Tom [Hulce] and I had. But we pretty much worked with the words throughout. There might have been some ad-libbing here and there. It was more our relationship that brought those words to life.

Crimson: Were you already friends with Tom before the movie?

Liotta: No. No, as a matter of fact, toward the second or third audition, they wanted to pair us up. I came in; they told me to be there at 11 O'clock or something and that the other actor would be there. And I couldn't imagine who it was going to be, because from what I heard, a lot of actors that you would probably know by name were very interested in this, so I had no idea who it was going to be. All of a sudden, in walks this little dog, and then in walks Amadeus. I'm saying, "Wow, holy shit!" And he was wondering who he was going to be matched up with. He saw Something Wild and liked my work, and I liked his work. So we were just very open because we knew what the story was about, so if we didn't like each other, then they would have picked it up, and we would have never gotten the job. So I consider him a close friend, and I hope he always will be.

Crimson: How was working with Jamie Lee Curtis?

Liotta: Great. She's a really nice, spunky girl. It was nice kissing her for a day. I kept on messing up the takes. We had to keep on redoing it. She was there with her baby and her husband, so they were off living in a different area than I was. But as we were working, yeah, I got to know her.

Crimson: Now that you've finished Dominick and Eugene, do you plan to wait for a new and challenging role again?

Liotta: Yeah. I'm reading something now about this tango dancer in Argentina. That's kind of different. So hopefully, that will work out. It's by the people who did Kiss of the Spider Woman, so it's with a good group of people. To me, the most important thing is the story. If it's a nice part and a good story, [the part] doesn't have to be that large. It doesn't have to be the lead. What I'm saying is that there aren't a lot of good writers out there, not a lot of good scripts. So you read a lot, and the ones you like, you just go for it.