- I'm Krista Smith and welcome to The Corner Booth.
I have at my table today Ray Liotta,
we are gonna talk about his new movie,
"Marriage Story."
- Ah here's the fact, Jack.
I charge $950 an hour, Ted is $400.
If you have a stupid question, you call Ted.
(jazzy saxophone music)
- You have such a delicious part (laughs)
in "Marriage Story" and you come on like, you know,
we see you, you're surprised basically.
It's such a fun part and such a real entryway
into the business of divorce basically.
Like when you read it, did you know immediately
that you wanted to do it?
- Yeah, the script is just great and I'm a big believer
that it's all in the writing and Noah wrote a great script.
You know, and I didn't have to choke anybody
or do anything like that so it was just good
and I really like Noah's work that he's been doin'
so it was just a great group of people.
- How did you find Adam to work with?
I mean he's like this young actor comin' up
and now he just seems to be everywhere.
- Yeah he's great, I really like his work
and I rally like the way he was approaching it.
What he was doing was really, really subtle.
He's really good.
- And you got to square off against Laura Dern,
I thought it was great to do that scene, just fantastic.
- His genius was an intangible asset
built during the marriage.
- Nora, I like how you refer to Charlie's theater
as a ramshackle downtown dump when you're arguing custody
but when you want more money, he's a big, rich,
genius Broadway director.
You can't have it both ways.
- What did you do for research for that?
Like, how do you approach--
characters? - I got divorced.
- You did. (laughs)
And that really is like the blueprint, right?
- Well, I'm being somewhat facetious.
There's a big lawyer in L.A. that I was gonna
have the opportunity to talk with
and I guess something happened so I wasn't able to,
but I read about him, but you just, you know,
the bottom line is you wanna win.
So you pretty much do it at all costs.
But it was all in the writing, it really was.
- Nora, I have to say that your account of this marriage
takes place in an alternate reality.
By suddenly moving to L.A. and insisting
on an L.A. residence, Nicole is withholding Henry.
- Do you like to rehearse a lot before?
Like, what's your process?
- No, not, it depends on what it is that I'm playing.
Like if I'm playin' a maniac or I gotta scare somebody
or do something intense, I like to do it
as a surprise 'cause sometimes actors anticipate.
So it really depends on, it depends on what the scene is.
But in general, no.
But like with "Goodfellas" we rehearsed for two weeks.
- What made you want to bean actor?
What was it, you didn't come from an acting family at all?
- Well my sister was very dramatic.
- She was dramatic? (laughs)
But not getting paid
to be dramatic right? - That's true, no.
- What was it that made you decide
that this was gonna be your career?
- Truthfully?
I didn't want to take math and history.
I didn't know what I was gonna do,
I figured I'd work construction or my dad
had a chain of automotive stores, maybe that.
But I didn't really like it so I got
into the University of Miami 'cause at that time
you just needed a pulse to get in there.
(Krista laughs)
And they said, we'll you're gonna have to take like a math
and a history for, you know, if you're undeclared.
I said, I don't even wannabe in college, there's no way
I'm gonna take things that I just wanted to get away from.
So right next to it was for the drama department.
So I took a step over and said I'll be
a drama major for a year.
I just stayed with it and then I really started
getting into it 'cause I never was even a movie-goer.
- So what do you look for now in your third decade acting?
- More things like this, more opportunity.
It's, I still like playing pretend
and it's really fun to work with people
that are that committed.
Because when you're that committed,
it's usually when you start feeling things
which then impacts on an audience hopefully.
- Do you go back and watch any of your films
or will you watch this one?
- I'll see this again in New York
'cause my daughter will be with me.
I've only seen like "Goodfellas" like once or twice
and one of the times was with her.
I haven't seen half the movies I've done.
- Really? - Yeah.
- No, well why is that?
- 'Cause I don't know-- - You live them during it?
- if there's any benefit.
You have to be really, really objective about it
and not subject and some people, you know you can tell
when some people watch their movies,
just the way they'll hold their head,
they'll know where the camera is, where the light is
and when you see that, you'll see people,
you can pick up that they've been schooled on themselves.
- Do you think your daughter, is she interested in acting?
- Yeah.
- Yeah, she is.
What advice would you give to her or to
other younger people that are--
- To study.
To study because all what we do is our imagination
and the imagination's like the muscle,
the more you use it, the stronger it gets.
Even when I did my first few movies,
I would go right back into class.
Do a movie, back into class.
"Goodfellas", back into class.