All of the younger actors keep coming up to me and asking me where all of the land mines are because they know I've stepped on them all.
We got Sally Field onboard [in Smokey and the Bandit] and it changed the entire dynamic. About a third of the way into filming, I was in the car with Sally and there was this little moment where we kind of looked at each other, and then we both turned and looked over at Hal [Needham]. He gave us a thumbs up and said, "Yeah!" And we kind of knew there was some magic going on.
Having done 300 television shows and almost 60 movies, I'm tired of having guys who are younger than some sandwiches I've had, telling me to turn left at the couch. There's no appreciation of actors and no sense of history.
The moment you grab someone by the lapels, you're lost.
I regret that I do not have the dignity of Ricardo Montalban, the class of Dean Martin, or the humor of Bill Cosby. I do have the heart of a lion.
Florida is a very healing place.
The more the art dominated my life and my house, the more the house became a home.
I can sing as well as Fred Astaire can act.
If I want to be up for an Academy Award, I'm either going to have to play a tour de force of some kind or have a tracheotomy just before the nominations.
Friends come in herds and they leave in herds. Hollywood loves an adventure, but you have to hit bottom. Then they love to save you and be a part of it. Or think they're a part of it.
The most important thing to remember is: to protect your quarterback - ME!
Jay Leno is wonderful and a good friend, but it will always be the Carson show to a lot of people.
Our family really didn't have a car; we had my dad's police cruiser. Later he got a Buick, and that's what I was driving when I had a wreck. I'm lucky it was as big and strong as it was, because that Buick is what saved my life.
It was a bit of a lark when I agreed to do [Smokey and the Bandit], and I knew we'd have fun if we could get Jackie Gleason.
But then when I'm in a halfway successful movie, it irritates the hell out of the critics in New York, because they'd like to kill my pictures if they could. So maybe I'm pretty good in the movie. Then they use all these words like I'm 'surprisingly' good, or 'shockingly enough,' I'm good. It's like I crawled out from under a magazine and they're surprised I can act.
Goldie [Hawn] is one of the sharpest ladies I've ever worked with. She doesn't miss a thing. She's my greatest audience. She laughs at all my stories and in the right places, too.
Gator [ McKlusky from White Lightning] was a criminal and a felon, but he had a good heart - he's probably a cousin to Bo. Bo was not a felon and definitely never wanted to hurt anybody - the final scene confirms that. He confesses to Buford T. Justice that he is right behind him. Gator McKlusky would not have done that.
I had known Hal [Needham] for a while by the time he moved in, so I was sure we'd get along well, and we did. He'd go off and do his gigs and I would do mine, and when we were lucky we got to work on the same ones.
Smokey and the Bandit was the first picture [Hal Needham ] directed, and I knew he could handle it. I had just directed Gator, and he saw my style and used that as a pattern.
I had an Indian Scout motorcycle during high school, but I never could take it to school. My dad would sneak out at night and pull the spark-plug wires.
I love Stroker Ace. I love the whole team. Jim Nabors really stole the show, and Ned Beatty, well I've made more of my movies with Ned Beatty than anybody else.
If you've as many films as I have, and missed as many opportunities as I have to do good work and been pissed off about it, you say, "Well, now you've got to start getting it right." If you get a chance, you really want to cook. And the tragedy is, when you finally feel that way about yourself, about your work, nobody wants to give you a chance. And that happens to a lot of actors. But I'm feeling very wanted these days, so there must be something in the air.
