Heartbreaker Liotta: He's a Jolly Good Fella

March 23 -- Ray Liotta — who's been called the actor's actor for his portrayals of psychos, gangsters, and obsessive lovers — is, for once, on the receiving end of nastiness as a love-struck auto "chop shop" owner victimized by a mother-daughter team of gold-diggers in Heartbreakers.

"One reason Ray is here is [because of] his work with Marty Scorsese in Goodfellas," notes Heartbreakers director David Mirkin. "I wanted that sense of danger he can bring."

Liotta is bringing plenty of his special intensity to the screen these days. His gory appearance in Hannibal's much-ballyhooed climax is one of the year's most talked-about scenes, one that disgusted even horror maven Stephen King.

In Heartbreakers, Liotta (whose first notable role was playing Melanie Griffith's crazy ex in 1986's Something Wild) is the pawn of a sexy mother (Sigourney Weaver) who teams with her nubile daughter (Jennifer Love Hewitt) to scam wealthy men out of money. As with Hannibal, Liotta again finds himself in an unpleasant mess, this time bound nearly naked to a headboard by Weaver, whom he must soothe by serenading her with a torturous love song.

Liotta's jump to lighter fare is, he says, a welcome break. "So many movies I do, it's heavy stuff and I'm the maniac. Sometimes at 7 in the morning, you're not in the mood to beat somebody up."

Come April, he goes back to playing a true good fella as Johnny Depp's father in Blow, the fact-based saga of the not-so-bright entrepreneur who brought Colombian cocaine to the States. "In Blow, I'm nice. I age from 25 to 60 [in the film, which is based on] a true story, which is mind-blowing — no pun intended."

Heartbreakers opens in theaters Friday.