August 18, 2000

Archived update from Cigarettes & Coffee, run by Greg Mariotti & CJ Wallis from 1999-2005

I'm going to take a different approach on today's edition of Flashback Friday. Burt Reynolds was recently interviewed for the September issue of FHM (For Him Magazine) & had some interesting comments. Watch how he carefully dodges the second question.

When you were researching your role for Boogie Nights, did you go to any porno sets?

Yeah, it's depressing. I knew some directors in that business, if you can call them that, guys who just turned left at the hard-on. They're never going to get out of it and the illusion that they will is a great tragedy. I knew this one director who was always saying, "I'm gonna get my shot. I'm gonna get my shot." And I'm thinking, "You poor guy, do you really think Spielberg's going to get sick one day and they're going to call you?"

There was a rumor that you and Boogie Nights director Paul Thomas Anderson didn't quite see eye-to-eye. What do you think of all these young hot directors today?

They amaze me. I haven't seen them in theater or in cancelled television shows, so where they learned how to be so good, I don't know. Today there's no place to fail. When I was starting out, nobody cared if you failed on Sea Hunt. Bad television is where I learned how to act. I think I'm only the actor around today who's been cancelled by all three networks!