I was accepted to Colorado State University in Fort Collins, which is a terrific Aggie school, and they had a great forestry program. But when I saw the syllabus and realized what I was going to actually have to be studying, there was a lot of science! If you want a degree in forestry, it's basically a science degree. And I just thought, "No, no, no, wait a second. Never mind!"

[Mel Gibson] played this kind of sadistic motorcycle cop. He was terrific. And he had this great sense of visual comedy.

Part of my claim to fame is that my first film was also Johnny Cash's first film.

This ["Cowboys & Aliens"] was an occasion where a studio was willing to spend a lot of money to make a film set in that time and place, but the hook was that they were also going to have aliens from outer space!

My first feature film was a movie called 'A Gunfight,' with Kirk Douglas, Johnny Cash, Karen Black, Jane Alexander, Raf Vallone... It was shot in Santa Fe, Mexico, in 1970, and it was directed by Lamont Johnson. It was the first gig I did when I got to California from having done 'Hair' in New York on Broadway for a year. It was a Western, though! But that film was not a successful release.

I was accepted to Colorado State University in Fort Collins, which is a terrific Aggie school, and they had a great forestry program. But when I saw the syllabus and realized what I was going to actually have to be studying, there was a lot of science! If you want a degree in forestry, it's basically a science degree. And I just thought, "No, no, no, wait a second. Never mind!"

I mean, it [Southern Comfort] is basically a story about the folly of our misadventure into that war, done in the context of these National Guard weekend warriors who wander into a world about which they know nothing and then wind up wreaking havoc on themselves.