By LILY TINOCO | Reporter
Late Palisadian Ray Liotta can be seen in Apple TV+’s upcoming miniseries “Black Bird,” his last completed television series.
The series—set to premiere July 8—features Liotta as a lead, alongside Taron Egerton and Paul Walter Hauser.
“Black Bird” is a psychological thriller developed and produced by Dennis Lehane, based on the true-crime memoir “In With the Devil: A Fallen Hero, A Serial Killer, and A Dangerous Bargain for Redemption” by James Keene and Hillel Levin.
“Inspired by actual events, when high school football hero, decorated policeman’s son and convicted drug dealer Jimmy Keene (Egerton) is sentenced to 10 years in a minimum security prison, he is given the choice of a lifetime—enter a maximum-security prison for the criminally insane and befriend suspected serial killer … or stay where he is and serve his full sentence with no possibility of parole,” according to a synopsis by Deadline. “This dramatic and captivating story subverts the crime genre by enlisting the help of the very people put behind bars to solve its mysteries.”
Liotta can be seen taking on the role as Big Jim Keene, a Kankakee police officer and Jimmy Keene’s father.
Liotta died on May 26 at the age of 67. It was reported that he died in his sleep while filming “Dangerous Waters” in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
“I wrote the part of Big Jim Keene in ‘Black Bird’ for Ray,” Lehane said in a statement “I had no other actor in mind and was floored—humbled, honored, fist-pump elated—when he lept at playing the part less than 24 hours after we sent him the scripts. And the performance he gave? It was a master class.
“It was, quite literally, the culmination of a lifelong dream to work with Ray Liotta … Ray came to set to work. He expected those he worked with to be prepared, professional and to take their work as seriously as he did. I loved that about him … I will always rue the day he left us.”
The actor was known for many roles in television and film, including Henry Hill in “Goodfellas” and Shoeless Joe Jackson in “Field of Dreams.”
All six episodes of the “Black Bird,” which is rated TV-MA, will be available for streaming on July 8 exclusively on Apple TV+.
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