Quotes

[on John Huston] A wondrous man . . . it's not like talking to God, but it's so close!

I want to see the writers strike, God bless them. They are the only true commies we have in Hollywood.

[on the creation of the "squeal like a pig" scene in Deliverance (1972)] Bill McKinney and I and the director [John Boorman] were both throwing stuff in the pot and that's where all that stuff came from. The way he caught me when I ran, it was scripted. It was just the way I gave in to what the situation was. I made myself available to whatever he wanted to do to me. But [Boorman] didn't believe that. He thought, "Well, aren't you gonna try to do something?". So what he really wanted was for me to run, and when I ran, I remembered how we were dealing with the situation of big boar hogs and how this older man would have to grab this one of the back legs, and I would have to hit it with the tackle and roll up on top of it and put the rope around the legs. All this was going and that's where we came to the squealing of the pig thing. I must tell you that most of the people that were on the film did not want us to do the scene. But the scene was important.

[on Sweet Land (2005)] We want to see a story about us, about people. Here's a girl who come from Norway and gets all the way to Minnesota. She doesn't speak a word of English, just German, and people still hated Germans form the first World War. Talk about strength. She's traveled alone and far to marry a gut through an arrangement with his parents. You wonder at the strength for just that, much less what it takes to hold on once she gets there. This is about people you know. I love it. I love what it's about. One scene summarizes the delicious sense of the movie. It's where Olaf is sleeping in the barn, and Inge is sleeping in the house and there's a sense of tension between them because they are going here and there and trying to get married, but they can't. They get into an argument, and they are talking in German and Norwegian. I love that scene. I love the fact that we know exactly what they are talking about, even though I don't speak and Norwegian or German. The performances are wonderful. The acting is as good as anything I've ever been in. I am proud. The two leads are good, boy they are good. I think when people see this movie, they won't have seen anybody like her [Elizabeth Reaser] in quite some time.