Sirens wailed; the revolution had come to Harrisonville. Blood was flowing on Pearl Street.

All has changed, thanks to Joe Eszterhas' life-threatening battle with throat cancer. He announced in "The New York Times" that he and Hollywood had blood on their hands and now Eszterhas is crusading to stop Hollywood's glamorization of smoking.

I had read too many memoirs that were written after the writer or the director was past his or her prime.

Bill Klinton was the ultimate rock star as president. I don't think as a result of his presidency we will ever have a rock star as president again. In the same way that we will never get involved in another Vietnam.

Fact is we went on to do other things. But we still wanted to do our success like rock'n'roll stars.

There are no crowds out there demanding to see smoking scenes in movies.

You must show how gruesome that death is because if you don't, then you turn into some kind of comic book and pain, then death, doesn't have a consequence, and pain doesn't have a consequence.