Ray Liotta Quotes

As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster.

The Rat Pack was the piece that really kicked me out of that little funk that I was in and then Ted called me up and asked me if I wanted to be the dad in Blow.

I really believe that you never stop learning.

I would like to do a lot more of it, I feel comfortable with it and basically it's all in the writing. I'm not a personality type actor, I need a good script in order to be funny, but it's definitely something that I like doing.

I'm not a proponent of people watching a movie, and then going out and doing something bad. People have been doing bad things, well before movies.

It is more difficult to maintain friendship with people that you work with five minutes ago, than from many years ago. For some reason we've just remained friends, we talk to each other all the time. For a while, for years, we spent New Year together.

I was on a soap opera before that for three years, where I was the nicest guy on earth.

I just - you know, some people just have some very full laughter - full of joy - and have no shame or fear of letting that out.

I didn't like some of the movies that were coming into me

I've done a few movies where I really liked the project, but I wasn't sure about the director, and I still did it and my instinct was right, in the beginning. Even though it was a good story, the guy still didn't really know what he was doing.

I think drug movies free the director to make intense films

You know, it was a small, independent movie and with Paramount becoming involved, it was obviously a good thing, but you can't put a round peg in a square hole.

You're always - you're constantly learning things if you're the type of person who stays open and current.

Suddenly playing the charming bad guy was my thing.

I know when I go to a movie I want to experience something, whether to laugh, to cry, to feel bad.

So, you need to balance it out with bigger and smaller movies.

I think that if you can achieve a balance, then you appease a lot of yourself and your career and what it takes to maintain in this business for a while

I like to think that even with some of the more intense ones sometimes there is humour in there, you try to make a complete human being, whether the guy is good or bad.

Man, I did love this game. I'd have played for food money... I used to love traveling on the trains from town to town. The hotels... brass spittoons in the lobbies, brass beds in the rooms. It was the crowd, rising to their feet when the ball was hit deep. Shoot, I'd play for nothing!

The more you think about something, the more important it becomes, the more important it is to you, and the more important it will become to the audience.

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

There's a personal side to me of challenges as an actor that I like to take on myself.

You want people to watch what you're doing.

If I think something's funny, I think it's funny.

The best way to learn anything is through a movie, because you have so much time to do it and you have great people teaching you.

In college, I started out doing musicals and Shakespeare

I do certain things that, maybe, nobody else knows why I'm doing. But it's all - it all has to do with - to grow as an actor.

You could just do independent movies, but I like bigger kind of studio movies, at least some of them.

You know, I started out really hot out of the box. Then I've definitely had and up-and-down career. And when things started cooling off again, it frustrated me.

There are a lot of actors who will watch the monitors. They'll do a scene, and then the director will look back to see if he got whatever he wanted. I just find it odd to sit there and watch yourself. But if you can be objective, I can see how it's really useful as a tool, especially if you're doing something physical.

I think people like watching edgy things.

I was looking to become more proactive with my career because I wasn't crazy with some of the scripts I was getting - this was before Blow and Hannibal - so I decided to start my own production company

So I decided to form a production company with my wife and our partner Diane.

With any mannerisms or dialogue, you have to be careful you're not just serving yourself. What happens with improving is a lot of times, if you're not in the framework of the script, you're just making everything easier so it fits you. It's much more interesting and challenging to go to it, rather than it coming to you.

The script - and a good one - tells you everything that you need to know.

I just know what it's like being an East Coast person, being from New Jersey.

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

It came time to go to college. My dad said, go wherever you want. Take whatever you want. He just really believed in getting out and being exposed to different things.

A stare is really nothing more than what you're thinking inside.

To me, being a gangster was better than being President of the United States.

I'm amused by a lot of things. I love humor. I'm constantly joking around.

My career has been up and down, and I like it much better being up.

I'm a big believer that the script is your bible.

If you start acting and you start thinking about and worrying about what other people are going to say about it, you'll never really fully commit to who it is and what it is that you're playing.

Just by the nature of what we do it kind of gets you out of the regularities of life. Playing pretend for a living is a good way to have a release and playing make believe is a good way of getting away from it and doing things like this. So I think work gets me away from life.

I played pretend games as a kid, army, whatever, but I never wanted to be an actor.

I never, ever wanted to be an actor.