Burt Reynolds is out on the media circuit to promote his new memoir and in interviews this week, explained again why he can’t stand Boogie Nights, the only film that earned him an Oscar nomination.
The Hollywood legend, 79, has made it clear in the past that he didn’t like working with Anderson, who was a young director at the time and was only making his second feature film. He supposedly has never seen the entire 1997 movie, which focuses on the pornography industry and was also a major milestone in Mark Wahlberg’s acting career.
Even though working on the film was tough, Anderson had offered Reynolds a part in Magnolia, but Reynolds turned him down.
“I’d done my picture with Paul Thomas Anderson, that was enough for me,” Reynolds told The Guardian.
While talking with GQ, Reynolds said that he still would never work with Anderson again. He also said that the director, who was only 26 at the time, was “young and full of himself.”
“Every shot we did, it was like the first time [that shot had ever been done]. I remember the first shot we did in Boogie Nights, where I drive the car to Grauman's Theater,” Reynolds recalled. “After he said, "Isn't that amazing?" And I named five pictures that had the same kind of shot. It wasn't original. But if you have to steal, steal from the best.”
Reynolds’ memoir, But Enough About Me, was released in November.