The role Burt Reynolds wanted to be remembered for: “It proved I could act”
Even though he was surrounded by friends and peers who deftly toed the line between being movie stars and lauded dramatic actors, Burt Reynolds could never quite manage to break into the latter camp.
As was the case for most of the mistakes he made during his career, he knew he only had himself to blame. He specifically named Robert Redford as someone he’d wanted to emulate by alternating between box office success and dramatic prestige, but he was too frightened to make the leap.
You could see why, though; Reynolds spent five years as the biggest draw in Hollywood, and since it was working so well and audiences were paying to see him headline action-packed adventure flicks, he was worried that he would alienate them if he ventured too far outside of his established wheelhouse.
He came to regret it, and he ended up being left behind by the likes of Redford, Clint Eastwood, Jack Nicholson, Paul Newman, Dustin Hoffman, Al Pacino, and Robert De Niro, performers who could open a film based on their name alone, but were equally capable at more character-driven work.
It didn’t help his case that he turned down so many iconic and award-winning roles, either, and by the time Reynolds reached the mid-1980s, his days as a top-level star were over, never to return. He knows that he made far too many bad choices and terrible pictures, but there was one he always wanted to be remembered for.
Not only was it, in his words, the first good movie he ever made, but it was also the one that he called the best he’d ever been in, helmed by the director he called the best he ever worked with. If he could preserve one film and one film only for future generations to see, he knew exactly what it would be.
“If I had to put only one of my movies in a time capsule, it would be Deliverance,” he wrote in his memoir, But Enough About Me. “I don’t know if it’s the best acting I’ve ever done, but it’s the best movie I’ve ever been in. It proved I could act, not only to the public, but to me.”
John Boorman’s backwoods thriller was far and away the most important role of his career, too. It elevated Reynolds to the level he’d always wanted to reach, and the strangest thing about his performance in Deliverance was that he never did anything like it again, with Boogie Nights the only thing that can hold a candle to his turn as Lewis Medlock, quality-wise.
It was a career-definer, although maybe not in the best way. The actor considered it the high watermark in his back catalogue, but when you remember that he worked for another 40+ years and, in his estimation, nothing else came close, you can see why he ended up harbouring so many regrets.
