The best way not to fail again is to be absolutely positive that when you do it this time, you're going to do it right.

Gator [ McKlusky from White Lightning] was a criminal and a felon, but he had a good heart - he's probably a cousin to Bo. Bo was not a felon and definitely never wanted to hurt anybody - the final scene confirms that. He confesses to Buford T. Justice that he is right behind him. Gator McKlusky would not have done that.

That's a big responsibility, and the details obsess me. And, also, I no longer feel I have to do the Tonight Show every time I open my mouth. Twenty years ago, I told myself I'd rather direct than act, and it's taken me this long. You lose your passion in acting. You make too many mistakes. Maybe that's why I make so many movies; if you don't like this one, another one's opening on Tuesday. But then I spent six months of my life on 'At Long Last Love,' a picture nobody saw. I enjoyed making it, I learned from it, I grew, but that's too much time out of my life.

I had known Hal [Needham] for a while by the time he moved in, so I was sure we'd get along well, and we did. He'd go off and do his gigs and I would do mine, and when we were lucky we got to work on the same ones.

If I want to be up for an Academy Award, I'm either going to have to play a tour de force of some kind or have a tracheotomy just before the nominations.

Florida is a very healing place.

The best way not to fail again is to be absolutely positive that when you do it this time, you're going to do it right.