Ray Liotta Receives Posthumous Emmy Nomination for ‘Black Bird’

Ray Liotta received a posthumous Emmy nomination for his role as Big Jim Keene in Dennis Lehane’s “Black Bird,” the Apple TV+ true crime series based on the real life of serial killer Larry Hall.

Liotta was nominated for best supporting actor in a limited series alongside his costar Paul Water Hauser, Richard Jenkins , Murray Bartlett, Joseph Lee, Young Mazino and Jesse Plemons..

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Liotta joins the small list of actors who have received posthumous Primetime Emmy nominations, including last year’s nomination of Chadwick Boseman (“What If…?”), Norm MacDonald (“Nothing Special”) and Jessica Walters (“Archer”) and the previous nominations of Carrie Fisher (“Catastrophe”), Audrey Hepburn (“Gardens of the World With Audrey Hepburn”), Anthony Bourdain (Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown”) and Fred Willard (“Modern Family”).

Liotta starred in “Black Bird” opposite Taron Egerton as his character’s son, Jimmy Keene, and Paul Walter Hauser as the infamous Larry Hall. The cast also included Sepideh Moafi as FBI agent Lauren McCauley and Greg Kinnear as Brian Miller. Liotta played Big Jim as bearded, white-haired, long-time police officer trying to deal with his drug-dealing, incarcerated son.

The six-part series premiered on Apple TV+ on July 8, 2022. It was one of Liotta’s final on-screen roles after he died on May 26, 2022.

“He meant everything to us,” said showrunner and writer Lehane at the series premiere last year. “I wrote the part for him, it was my dream to work with him. He was as good as advertised. He raised all boats, and he never gave the same take twice. He was a complete, consummate professional. He was there to work. And then when he died, it was tough because our last conversation three weeks earlier had been about what we were gonna do next. We just hope that at least the legacy lives on through this performance,” said Lehane.

Liotta died in his sleep on May 26, 2022, at the age of 67. Since the start of his acting career in the early 1980s, Liotta became known for his roles as Henry Hill in Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas,” ‘Shoeless’ Joe Jackson in Kevin Costner’s “Field of Dreams” and Ray Sinclair in the 1986 comedy “Something Wild.”

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