He’s going on and on and on, and finally he stops. It’s just total horror, and the camera’s still rolling. You can hear it, sort of a grinding noise. And the director says, “Anything else, Bud?”
I go home and stay there. I wash and scrub up each day, and that’s it. One month I actually grew a moustache, just so I could say that I’d done something.
Back then, when a movie came out and people saw you on the street, their reaction was so supercharged that it was scary. It would frighten other people. It used to really rattle me.
Nowadays, the scripts are just so much better, that you don’t have to feel that way. You feel like the script’s coming to you, you can just relax. You don’t have to drive the boat.
I was in the Virgin Islands once. I met a girl. We ate lobster, drank piña coladas. At sunset, we made love like sea otters. That was a pretty good day. Why couldn’t I get that day over and over and over?
I try to be available for life to happen to me. We’re in this life, and if you’re not available, the sort of ordinary time goes past and you didn’t live it. But if you’re available, life gets huge. You’re really living it.
The only way we’ll ever know what it’s like to be you is if you work your best at being you as often as you can, and keep reminding yourself: That’s where home is.
When you did the job, you thought you were just trying to amuse your friends who are all on the job. I’m just trying to make the sound guy laugh, the script supervisor.
I knew that’s where I was going. I knew we were going to Italy. You couldn’t make this movie in America at this price. I knew it was going to be big. I knew there was going to be a ship involved and that there was going to be a set as big as the ship.
The set is stocked with Victorian extras and little children in Oliver kind of outfits, and the director says, “All right, Bud – just give it whatever you want.” And Hackett goes off on a rant. Unbelievably obscene.
