Quotes

The important thing is to do good work, no matter what medium you do it in.

[1980] You read a lot about movies with budgets of $25 to $30 million. Hell, if a studio can piss away that kind of money, why not let 'em piss on me?

[on Bob Fosse] Fosse, I think, came to a high point in his life, with an Oscar, a Tony and an Emmy, and asked himself, "Do they think I'm really that good? They don't know I'm really a sham, a hoax, a phony, a lousy human being, not much of a friend to anybody and a flop... they don't know I'm covered with flop sweat." That's an expression Bob uses a lot -- flop sweat.

[on working with Jane Fonda in the mystery thriller Klute (1971)] I liked her passion. And her professionalism. You know, Jane worked for years as a silly ingénue on the stage in New York and, I mean, she was laughable at first. But she stayed with it and, slowly, carefully, learned her craft.

[on shooting the troubled Sheila Levine Is Dead and Living in New York (1975)] The hardest thing about that one was working with Jeannie Berlin. You don't do a picture with that one unless you've got a personal stake in it. She's very disturbed, and it was hard for the director.

[on how his career was affected by French Connection (1971)] I got inundated with cop scripts after that. It was the same role over and over, and every cop movie was a cheap imitation. I'd get this script and every one had a chase sequence, every scene was either set in a garage or a vacant lot or a warehouse with everybody getting gunned down.

I've been fortunate to do what I consider three landmark films. French Connection (1971) spawned a whole era of the relationship between two policemen, based on an enormous amount of truth about working on the job. Les Dents de la mer (1975) was the first big, blockbuster outdoor-adventure film. And certainly Que le spectacle commence... (1979) is not like any old MGM musical. Each one of these films is unique, and I consider myself fortunate to be associated with them.

The Theater lies like the truth. That's Harold Clurman's phrase. The Theater lies because it expands the truth. And by expanding and dramatizing the truth, it makes it more than just the facts. That's what writers do. That's what actors do. That's what I do.