Smokey and the Bandit: “It was the worst script I ever read in my life. But (writer/director) Hal Needham was my roommate, and he let us improvise. Sally (Field) was fabulous. There was all kinds of resistance to casting her, that she wasn’t sexy, because she’d been Gidget and The Flying Nun. But talent is sexy. You see her sitting on screen next to Paul Newman, and you’re just flabbergasted at her talent. If you can play a flying nun, you can act.”

Deliverance: “It was a wonderful shoot to do. John Boorman is the best director I ever worked with. Jon Voight, Ned Beatty and I still talk at least once a week. I don’t know where you find four actors to do that picture today without having four stuntmen. We were young and crazy and it made for a hell of a picture.”

Best Friends: “One of my favorite pictures, mostly because of Goldie (Hawn), who is so special. The script was funny, and I think we all rose to the occasion.”

Starting Over: “My favorite picture. It was a great script by James L. Brooks, who wrote Terms of Endearment for me. I should be hit in the head with a shovel for turning it down.”

Sharky’s Machine: “I directed the film and was very proud of it. It made a star out of Rachel Ward and it should have. When she read for me, I told her to come back in 24 hours after screaming all night out by the railroad track. She came back the next day sounding like Lauren Bacall.”

The Longest Yard (1974): “It was the most fun I ever had on a movie. We were filming at a real prison in Georgia, the most dangerous at that time that you could go into. The guy that was my stand-in, when we left he was so put upon by the other prisoners that they stabbed him. I was just dumbfounded.”

The Longest Yard (2005): “I was walking past Tracy Morgan — we were filming at the time — and he said ‘Hi, Burt Reynolds!’ He later said ‘I am so sorry! I was so happy to see you.’ Chris Rock and I had a wonderful relationship on the set. All of the young black comedians on the movie wanted, every second, for me to tell them stories about Richard Pryor.”

Evening Shade: “That was wonderful. All my friends came to play — Elizabeth Ashley, Hal Holbrook, Marilu Henner, who played my wife, and Ossie Davis, who was my closest friend. I miss him every day.”

Boogie Nights: “It’s a good film. I like the film — I don’t like the subject matter.”

Striptease: “It was a lot of fun. The only problem was that I was making a comedy, which I think (author Carl) Hiaasen had in mind. The rest of the people were making a drama.”

Driven: “There was a wonderful scene with Sly (Stallone), where I was telling him how I’d driven fast my whole career, and now I couldn’t get out of this chair. He was off-camera, and I could see he’d started to tear up. And I thought, ‘Either I’m doing something right, or he’s easy.’”

W.W. and the Dixie Dance Kings: “Not that well known, but in my mind, it was great fun. It was a bouquet to country music, and what could be better than shooting at the old Ryman Auditorium in Nashville?”

Breaking In: “Again, not a monster hit, but got fabulous reviews. Directed by Bill Forsyth, from Scotland, who also directed Burt Lancaster in Local Hero. Well worth another look.”

B.L. Stryker: “We were supposed to shoot a Palm Beach mansion, but they wouldn’t let us shoot there. They were rather rude about it, so we formed a Rambo unit, where we’d jump out of the car, get the shot very quickly, jump back in the car, drive to the other side of the island, and shoot another one.”