The Importance of Having Burt Reynolds on the Set of "The Longest Yard:" “It was amazing. Burt is the man. Very few people are that famous. You kind of look at this guy and he’s been, at one time, the number one star in the world. He was the Tom Cruise of his day. And one good thing about him, he has moved on with the times and has always made himself a viable commodity. Now he’s doing ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ and he’s doing movies like ‘The Longest Yard.’ He did ‘Without a Paddle’ with Dax Shepard. He never played himself out. He’s always in the mix because he understands as an actor, that’s what it’s about. Actors act. It’s not about living in those old days. Old football players always like to live in that one game. But you have to move on after a while.”
The Old Competitive Urges Emerge on the Set of “The Longest Yard:” “It was nuts. It got a little heated a couple of times. Bill Romanowski, that dude he’s a fiery individual. I tell people to play in the NFL there had to be some sort of mean streak. There has to be some little screw loose somewhere to do what you do. And sometimes in real life and in the movies and all that stuff, that kind of tips over. There were some fights. There were some tempers. But it was all playful. All of us were cool afterwards, but we want to really come around and show people what it was about. It was a lot of fun. It was a great, great effort because everyone gave 100% and I think it shows on the screen.”
Terry Crews Rates Nelly’s Football Skills: “Oh my God, I tell everybody Nelly could play in the NFL. You know he was actually signed to play professional baseball and he decided to rap instead. He is a primetime athlete. He did the MTV Rock and Jock Football Jam and killed it. He was the best athlete. He was running circles around everybody. People were like, ‘Wait a minute. He would be perfect in this movie.’ When you see Nelly running and doing his thing, there’s no doubt this brother could have played in the league. That’s really Nelly. You see the face, you see the whole thing. His athleticism surprised everybody.”
On Adam Sandler’s Skills at Quarterback: “Believe me when I first signed on I was like, ‘How’s the Waterboy going to throw to the Glory Boy? How’s that going to happen?’ And Adam pulled it off. He worked with Sean Salisbury for months and perfected his quarterbacking skills and the whole thing. And you just go, ‘Oh my God, he understands what this is about.’
The wise thing is is that he’s still Adam. He plays it in this every guy persona. Adam is literally ‘every man’. In his movies he’s always identifiable with just regular people. And he’s still that way. He’s just a friend. He’s that friend of yours you’ve had for 20 years. You feel like you know him. And he played Paul Crewe in that way. I thought it was a brilliant way to play it.”
Terry Crews on His Role in Mike Judge’s Next Movie: “It’s the ‘Untitled Mike Judge Comedy.’ I play a guy named President Camacho who is President of the United States. And it’s set in the future and what happens is that Luke Wilson is part of this hibernation experiment and they forget about him. He wakes up hundreds of years later and he finds out the world has pretty much been dumbed down into stupidity. And I am the President of the United States. And that’s all I can say about that one (laughing). I have to wait to see it. It was going to come out August 6th but they pushed it back to the fall.”
On the Set with Mike Judge: “He’s great. He’s a genius. I have to say I love Mike. He’s always calculating the comedy. You know he was a physics major so you can see him just adding things up in his head. You just love it.”
Coming Soon: “Harsh Times” with “Batman Begins” Star Christian Bale: “David Ayer, the writer of ‘Training Day’ directed it. Eva Longoria, Freddy Rodriguez… It’s a really, really dark, intense movie. I have to say I’m really looking forward to that one. I play a guy named Dell who is a friend of Christian Bale’s. And Christian plays this guy who basically gets out of the service and tries to assimilate into normal life in South Central LA. His old life, his old gang life, kind of pulls him back in. It’s really intense. I’m telling you this movie starts out dark and gets really dark.”
Being a Part of Chris Rock’s TV Series: “It’s called ‘Everybody Hates Chris’ and it’s on UPN. We just got picked up. We’re excited. We did the pilot about three weeks ago. Chris is executive producer and it’s all about Chris’ life growing up in Brooklyn in the 80s. It’s like the ‘Wonder Years’ but for Chris.”
Why Does Chris Think Everybody Hates Him?: “That’s the thing. Chris is 13 and when you’re 13 you think everybody hates you. It’s only in his mind but it’s Chris’ coming of age. It’s a really heartwarming series. I’m really excited about it.”
