What Hollywood has done through the years is glamorized it even more, made it sexy, made it sensuous, and dwelled on those pleasure aspects, completing ignoring the fact that Hollywood as an industry, was pointing the gun at young people - pointing a gun at them when they were 12 to 14 years.

Certainly on a political and a legislative level, Bill Clinton was effective, but the example that he ultimately left, I think for posterity, tragically, is going to begin with that single paragraph lead with the White House intern.

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.

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.

Meanwhile, politics is about getting a candidate in front of the public as a star, politics as rock'n'roll, politics as a movie.

If they gave a Nobel Peace Prize for work against big tobacco, not just in the industry, but also with the California tax initiative, he really deserves one.

Now the cigarette companies claim that they don't do that [ pay to have their product advertised in movies ] anymore, although it certainly makes you wonder a bit when an independent production like "In The Bedroom", you know, seems to focus constantly on Marlboros and almost it turns into a Marlboro ad, whether there was any money exchanged.