Ray Liotta Regrets Turning Down Audition For Tim Burton's Batman

Things could have been so different for Ray Liotta.

Rather than becoming the drug-addled gangster Henry Hill in ‘Goodfellas’, he could have been the Caped Crusader in Gotham City.

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And now he’s spoken of his regret at not jumping at the chance of auditioning for the role, one which Tim Burton had him in mind for when he rebooted the franchise in 1989.

“I wish I’d handled my career differently but, you know, hindsight,” he told The Irish News.

“When I did my first movie, Tim Burton was getting ready to do Batman and he was interested in me because he wanted it to be edgy and real.

“My first movie was ‘Something Wild’ - I was a real edgy kind of guy.

“I thought, 'Batman? That’s a stupid idea’, even though he’d had just done one of my favourite movies of all time, ‘Beetlejuice’. So yes, I regret not auditioning.

“That movie and the success of Jack Nicholson… my career could have taken off in a different kind of way.”

However, he added that things didn’t perhaps go so badly for him.

“People ask if I’m bothered by that but no, Goodfellas will be a top 10 movie for years and years, it seems,” he said.

“I have kids coming up to me like the movie has come out that week, not realising it’s like 26 years old.

“I came in at the tail end of what was a great period and sensibility of movie making which was in the 1970s.

“It was an unbelievable period of movies, the types of movies, the anti-hero.

“It wasn’t all about flying people and it admittedly messed things up a little because to me it was all about the acting.”

Next up, Liotta is appearing in the Sky series 'Shades of Blue’ opposite Jennifer Lopez.

Image credits: PA/Rex Features