I was a militant smoker, and in my case, I think I particularly used smoking because what I felt was a kind of politically correct big brother assault on smoking.

Cigarettes, cigarettes were much tougher. Booze was tough And I had a real drinking problem before as we discovered in the hospital really, but the cigarettes are much tougher and to tell you the truth.

In 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.]

From a writing point of view, you now have teams of screenwriters working with a director. What's lost in the process is the power of that one heart, brain, gut and soul that makes something an original piece of writing.

I worry that we are approaching a time when that which is shocking is squeezed out by the Stalinism of political correctness.

I was surprised by how warm the response was, even among studio heads, who said they really, we do have to do something about glamourization of smoking.

They do the same thing [with cigarette] that they do in the kind of action picture where you know 200 people are killed and then there's no pain.