The one director whose movies Burt Reynolds refused to watch: “I’d rather be shot in the leg”
Being a famous and world-renowned actor doesn’t mean that a performer naturally gravitates towards films made by famous and world-renowned directors. Take Burt Reynolds, for instance, who admitted he’d gladly take a bullet instead of watching a single frame shot by one of cinema’s all-time great auteurs.
That seems excessive, but Reynolds was hardly the shy and retiring type. After all, his decades in the spotlight saw him reach the summit of Hollywood as one of its biggest and most bankable leading men, only for a series of poor decisions and high-profile feuds to cause a gradual descent that left many branding him as a has-been and a relic of a bygone era.
Those accusations weren’t without merit, but it looked like salvation was on the cards when Paul Thomas Anderson came calling with Boogie Nights. He plucked Reynolds from the clutches of irrelevancy to hand him the best role of his entire career, which saw the star rewarded with the sole Academy Award nomination of his professional life in what was comfortably the best work he ever delivered on camera.
Of course, the downside is that Reynolds detested the filmmaker with an intense and burning passion, which caused him to reject a role in the even more acclaimed Magnolia for the sole reason that he hated Anderson too much to even consider working with him again. It wasn’t PTA he refuses to watch, though, even if his bold comments were never put to the test.
In a conversation with Esquire, Reynolds confessed, “I’d rather be shot in the leg than watch an Ingmar Bergman picture.” Everybody has their filmic preferences, and it’s obvious that influential Swedish dramas that burrowed deep into the psychology of the human condition and regularly took their place among the pantheon of the medium’s greatest-ever works weren’t part of his viewing habits.
That said, is it really surprising that the all-American icon and moustachioed face of so many comedic action flicks would have no interest in experiencing The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Persona, or any of Bergman’s other masterpieces? Not really. Still, adamantly stating that if he was tied to a chair and the choices boiled down to watching a single one of the director’s features from start to finish or being shot, opting for the bullet comes across as disproportionate.
On the other side of the coin, despite being known to keep a copy of Adam Sandler’s Anger Management in his house, would Bergman be particularly keen to see Smokey and the Bandit, The Cannonball Run, or The Longest Yard? Probably not. He’s undoubtedly a towering figure in the history of cinema, but Reynolds would still prefer a leg full of hot lead than indulge even a second of Swedish expressionism.
