This is Fresh Air. I'm David B. and Cooley, professor of television studies at Rowan University in New Jersey in for Terry Gross.

We always call each other good fellows. Like you say to somebody, you're gonna like this guy, he's alright. He's a good fellow, he's one of us. Understand?

That's Ray Leota in the starring role of Martin Scorsese's classic 1990 film, Goodfellas.

Leota died last week at the age of 67. We're going to listen to Terry's 2016 interview with him. In Goodfellas, he played Henry Hill, a wise guy, a member of a New York crime family who testified against the family after he was arrested and went into the witness protection program.

Leota already had played a tough guy in his first major role in the 1986 film Something Wild. But he didn't always play tough. In the 1989 film Field of Dreams, he played Shulis Joe Jackson, whose ghost shows up at an Iowa cornfield, which had been turned into a baseball diamond by a farmer played by Kevin Costner.

And then I did love this game. I had a plate for food money. It was a game. The sounds, the smells.

Did you ever hold a ball or a glove to your face? Yeah. I used to love traveling on the trains from town to town.

The hotels, brass petunes in the lobbies, brass beds in the rooms. It was a crowd rising to their feet, the ball was sit deep.

Shoot. I don't play for nothing. Leota also played a range of roles in commercial and independent films and even played Frank Sinatra in the HBO movie The Rat Pack.

When Terry spoke with him, he was starring in the NBC series Shades of Blue opposite Jennifer Lopez. They both played corrupt New York cops.

The criminals pay off the cops and in return, the cops let the dealers do their thing, up to a point.

Here's a scene from an episode of that show. Leota's character, Lieutenant Matt Wozniak, is using a little coercion to keep one of the dealers in line.

I need to remind you about our understanding role. Oh, I remember. You wanted to protect parks and schools from the joke trade.

I trusted your assurance that no one else will push into that territory. This isn't about your turf, the dope's cut hot.

I need to get it all off the street you cracked the skull of my only lead. I don't think you're appreciating my situation. I can't look like a b****.

You don't dispense a street justice in my precinct. Where is he? The girlfriend never gave him up. Tough girl. Don't worry. I'll find him. No more man, I'm wrong.

We both want what's best for the community, Lieutenant. I think you know what that's going to think.

We'll explain to you how this works. I'll make you, because you keep your business contained if you don't cause me any aggravation.

We both know that if I burn you down tonight, some gunk Phoenix would rise from your ashes. I'm already starting to like him better.

That's really, oh, that's really, oh, that's really, oh, that's really, oh, that's really, oh, that's really, oh, that's really, really good.

I think I was throwing ashes on him. You were, yeah, and they were getting in his eyes and his nose and his mouth. And he was like choking and burning and not really liking your particular form of interrogation.

So how did you get the part on shades of blue?

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