Ray Liotta Wasn't Exactly Blown Away By The Script For Field Of Dreams
Kevin Costner has starred in several films about baseball, and they're all remarkably different. Both "Bull Durham" and "For Love of the Game" combine romance with America's National Pastime, yet the former is a funny, flirtatious romp that parallels the mechanics of the sport with the rituals of human courtship. The latter, on the other hand, is an elegiac melodrama about the things we prioritize in life and just how hard it is to bid farewell to the life you used to have upon reaching a crossroads.
Phil Alden Robinson's classic "Field of Dreams" exists somewhere at the nexus of those two films, merging a baseball fable with a poignant story about regret but with a fantasy twist. The film, which adapts W. P. Kinsella's 1982 book "Shoeless Joe," casts Costner as Ray Kinsella, an everyman who, like other Boomers, was once a child of '60s counter-culturalism. He's since forsaken his dreams (including his passion for the sport of baseball) in favor of practicality and cares for his family on their corn farm in Iowa. Then, one evening while strolling among his cornstalks, a body-less voice plants the idea in Ray's head: If he builds a baseball field on his farm, then his late, estranged father's hero, the baseball legend "Shoeless" Joe Jackson, will appear.
When you phrase it like that, you can see why Ray Liotta, who played the specter of "Shoeless" Joe, wasn't immediately hooked by the film's script. "I read the script and thought, 'Okay, this guy builds a baseball field and these ghosts come out of the corn. Hmm...'" as the actor told Empire Magazine in 2012. "But Kevin was already cast and I knew him because a group of us — me, Kevin, Steven Bauer, and Andy Garcia — used to play paddle tennis together."
'Okay, dead baseball players, but this has got some really great actors in it'
Ray Liotta's initial skepticism towards "Field of Dreams" recalls the way Kinsella's family and neighbors react upon learning what he's up to, save for his supportive — if understandably somewhat exasperated — wife Annie (Amy Madigan). It also seemingly informed Liotta's performance as the spirit of "Shoeless" Joe, who does, in fact, show up on Ray's baseball field one night yet keeps his emotions close to the chest at first (as though even he isn't sure about what to make of his situation).
As the film's cast continued to grow, adding James Earl Jones as reclusive author and former activist Terence Mann, who Ray is compelled by the mysterious voice to seek out, Liotta found himself starting to become a believer, too. "James Earl Jones was cast and so was Amy Madigan, who I'd done a TV movie with," said Liotta. "So I thought, 'Okay, dead baseball players, but this has got some really great actors in it — never mind Burt Lancaster!'"
"Field of Dreams" marked the final film role for the screen legend Lancaster, who co-stars as a small-town physician who left his dreams of baseball superstardom behind long ago. "I didn't have any scenes with him, unfortunately. But the first day he came to set I came down specially to watch him — my God, it was Burt Lancaster! I was still a young actor, just taking it all in," said Liotta.
While they technically don't share the screen in "Field of Dreams," Liotta was nevertheless part of Lancaster's final onscreen appearance ever. The result is about as powerful and touching a sendoff as any actor could ask for. One can only imagine Liotta was grateful he ultimately came around to making the film.