I'm not suggesting at all that we take away all of the characters' vices. I am suggesting that this particular vice is so insidious, so nefarious, and so deadly that simply by glamorizing it or poisoning our young adults, and I think it's a very separate category, but in no way am I suggesting that we move on from banning smoking in movies to banning drinking, you know, or whatever else we want to do.
Joe EszterhasI do want to make a special appeal to women movie stars to, I think, have a special responsibility these days to stop smoking, not to do it up on screen because the example that's being set is really an awful example.
Joe EszterhasIn the olden days, of course, cigarette companies would pay to have their product advertised in movies and to have actors smoke cigarettes.[Ronald Reagan used to do it.]
Joe EszterhasAssuming that all bad girls smoke. I don't think so. I've been around a lot of bad girls who don't smoke, you know, so I think it's easy to put a cigarette into, you know, into anyone's hands and say, well that makes them a bad boy or a bad girl. There are many more creative ways from a writerly point of view to do that.
Joe Eszterhas