When I worked with Chevy Chase, Michael Ritchie would say, "Just ad lib and try to break me up. Just insult me. Anything." When we were doing his close-up, or when my back was to the camera, I would come up with jokes or quips or anything, to get a real reaction out of him. He was smart enough to know that was gold. So it was great fun working with him and Michael, and getting to see how the two worked together. I think Fletch and Clark Griswold were Chevy's two best roles. He's so incredibly talented and still vastly underused.

I think that idealism is always there in America. It's a spirit that's been subverted lately, and sold down the river to the contractors, what with the privatizing of all aspects of the government. It's so cold and cynical - all dollars and cents and parcel it up and sell it out and downgrade it and outsource it. They don't consider what it does to people. I think the spirit of this country is finally coming back, and hopefully it will triumph.

Going through a divorce after twenty-five years of marriage was the most difficult time for me. It was challenging to reorient my life from being centered around family, a family home, and a long-term relationship.

I love JFK. My mother had been a worker on his campaign and adored him.

I'll never forget John Heard doing Shakespeare In The Park with Raul Julia and Richard Dreyfuss. It was 30 years ago, I guess. It was Othello, and John Heard played Cassio, and while everyone else was "Acting!" Heard came on talking normal, and everyone in the audience was leaning in to follow him. I wasn't doing that in Bus Stop. I think in that performance, I was putting it out a little too much.

John Belushi infused Animal House with this spirit of guerilla filmmaking. John Landis came from that world too, and all the National Lampoon writers were from that world. It was just chaos on film. Controlled chaos, though. We stayed very close to the script. It was a very formal kind of movie, if you look at it. Formally photographed and structured, with certain elements of improv.

Sam Kinison was one of the most compulsive people I'd ever seen. James Belushi was that way, and Chris Farley was that way. He was incredibly talented and made me laugh so hard, and there was nothing he wouldn't say. Such a unique, amazing, cynical, realistic, but still optimistic look at life he had. It was great fun to get to know him.