Ray Liotta Was Originally Confused by the FIELD OF DREAMS Script But Stayed On to Work With Great Co-Stars

Actor Ray Liotta started out his career starring in many TV series before he headed to the big screen in a series of several films that took his career to the next level, starting with Field of Dreams. The classic, beloved film stars Kevin Costner as a corn farmer in rural Iowa, who begins to have promptings that push him to build a baseball field amid his corn crops, where the ghosts of baseball players past return to play the game.

Liotta plays baseball great Shoeless Joe Jackson in the movie, and he does an amazing job in the part, but when he first read the script, he was just confused more than anything. 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."

Costner wasn’t the only co-star that appealed to Liotta. The actor went on to say:

"James Earl Jones was cast and so was Amy Madigan, who I'd done a TV movie with. So I thought, 'Okay, dead baseball players, but this has got some really great actors in it — never mind Burt Lancaster!' 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."

While they technically don't share any scenes in the film, Liotta was able to say that he was part of Lancaster's final movie. And Liotta delivered a beautiful performance in the movie, which lives on as a favorite to many.