Dan Houser admits: Ray Liotta saved the screenplay of Vice City

Co-founder of Rockstar Games and author of some of the most popular open-world stories in the world of video games, Dan Houser revealed that the original script for Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was "terrible". The rescue? He came from Ray Liotta, whose interpretation of Tommy Vercetti raised the material far beyond what was written. What exactly did Houser say? In a recent interview, Houser was interviewed about his work with Liotta, the actor of Goodfellas and Something Wild who provided Tommy's voice throughout the game. His answer was honest: "My writing was bad, and he made it good." He didn't stop there. Houser explained that the best of the actors not only played what the writer asked, but also found things that were not even written. "When they agreed, they understood what was in my head, from the point of view of the character. The best actors went a level above, and he did it." It was a significant confession from someone who also wrote Red Dead Redemption and GTA V, two acclaimed games for their narrative depth. How it happened The story about how Liotta eventually provided Tommy's voice was almost as touching as the game itself. Rockstar contacted Liotta's agent suddenly and offered him a compensation for about four working days. Houser tells about a dinner with him the day before the recordings, then spent two days in a studio in New York. A few months later, in view of the game's release, Houser flew to Los Angeles to complete some additional footage. The first session was difficult. "The first day was annoyed," Houser said. Then something changed. On the second day Liotta did about five hours of recordings and ended up all at once. "It was great. He added an authenticity to Tommy I thought it would be hard to find on others." It was this authenticity that differentiated Vice City from its predecessors. The game strongly emphasised Miami's criminal fantasy of the '80s and Tommy had to look like a real threat, not a bad cartoon. Liotta, on the eve of a career based on the interpretation of dangerous but charismatic figures, was the perfect person. I remember Ray Liotta died in May 2022. His work as the voice of Tommy Vercetti remains one of the most memorable interpretations in the history of video games.

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