I always try to do true endings and that's where I got into trouble always because Hollywood wants to do happy endings.

And the inner dynamics of Hollywood are like politics. Say you give a script to a group of executives - they all sit around, afraid to voice an opinion, saying nothing, waiting to know what the consensus is. Just like focus groups, opinion polls or a cabinet.

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.]

There are certainly a lot of sins to be taken on. To take on smoking and movies is a weighty enough thing, I think, and it's one I've experienced, and it's what's caused me to live in-with my voice maimed for the rest of my life.

The studios have been taken over by marketing people and accountants.

I have always been fascinated by the corruption of power.

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.