Ray Liotta and VA

[justcurious]

For some random reason I had nostalgia for GTA Vice City (probably GTA VI trailer) and remembered the rumors of Ray Liotta having some kind of "dispute" with Rockstar about his pay and general displeasure with working with them. By most accounts, Rockstar's bad experience with the Hollywood types and pay concerns pushed them towards working with unknowns, but that didn't make them immune from disputes and criticism.

 

I came across this article back the day (rediscovered) that describes some of the experiences from the book Jacked: The Outlaw Story of Grand Theft Auto. I'm now interested in reading it, and started thinking more about GTA voice acting. I know the pay for the actors is never disclosed, outside of the guy from GTA IV who complained he was only paid $100,000 for 15 months of work. 

I got to thinking about how much time the old "Hollywood" types had to put into voice acting and how much they were paid. Based on some of the stuff I've read, since the older games were much quicker to develop (significantly <1 year), the voice actors didn't have to devote as much time to this. Outside of Liotta, the other "celebs" had smaller roles (Samuel Jackson, Dennis Hopper, Burt Reynolds), so their required time on the project was probably not that much. Also, outside of Samuel Jackson, they were no longer a hot commodity or a character actor type that likely didn't command huge salaries (relative to leads) for movies.

 

In the Wired article this is what is said:

Quote

What the hell? Khonsari thought. Khonsari’s dad was a doctor, and here was this Hollywood tough guy—who was getting paid half what his dad made in a year? And he was copping an attitude? “Look,” Khonsari said, “I don’t really give a sh*t what you do outside this, I mean, I loved you in Goodfellas, but this is a job, and you gotta do this.” Khonsari got him a big cup of Starbucks, and he calmed down and got into the part.

I can't tell if this is a dig towards how little a "Hollywood tough guy" was making or if it was Khonsari being upset that this actor was making half of what his doctor dad was making in a whole year for significantly less work and time and still moaning and complaining. Can someone elaborate this?

 

From that, I gather that Liotta was paid roughly $150k-$300k (assuming we go with a salary for a physician in the US). Someone on this forum said that Liotta signed on in January 2002 and his role was finished in August 2002. Assuming he worked on the project full-time all those months (I'm doubtful of this), he was paid that much for about 8 months worth of work. Hard to feel bad for someone making that kind of money for sitting in a booth and likely doing less than 40 hours, but who knows what kind of hours he was putting in. My guess is that he thought the game was "beneath him" and Rockstar was demanding more than he expected before he signed on. Then the game went on to be a huge success and he felt that he deserved royalties and a bigger salary for a cameo in San Andreas, which is when things got dicey. I wonder if there was some kind of contractual agreement on hours worked. If he thought he would be working 3 months and they kept bringing him back in to re-read lines, that could merit some consternation. Even though he wasn't that big of an actor outside of Goodfellas, he likely was commanding a similar salary for the same amount of time commitment in films.

 

I think the days of a Hollywood actor in a significant role ever showing up in a GTA game are slim to none. The time commitment alone would make it impossible. These games take years to make, probably as many years as the number of months it took to make the older GTAs. Ray Liotta's role is really like a once in a lifetime type of thing for GTA. I wonder what the new era main character voice actors make because of how many years they might be attached to the project.