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There Are Certainly A Lot Of Sins To Be Taken On. To Take On Smoking And Movies Is A Weighty Enough Thing, I Think, And It's One I've Experienced, And It's What's Caused Me To Live In-with My Voice Maimed For The Rest Of My Life.

-Joe Eszterhas

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There Are Certainly A

Joe Eszterhas

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There Are Certainly A Lot Of Sins To Be Taken On. To Take On Smoking And Movies Is A Weighty Enough Thing, I Think, And It's One I've Experienced, And It's What's Caused Me To Live In-with My Voice Maimed For The Rest Of My Life.

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I Was Very Skeptical When He Began, And There Have Been Moments Where I Think He's Shown Absolute Leadership, And I Think The Jury Is Out, Still Out. I Haven't Made Any Final Decisions On Him, But I've Been Surprised At Times. I Agree With Him About One Thing Absolutely - George W. Bush Said Recently That He Believed In Prayer And Exercise. So Do I.

I Changed My Diet Completely. You Know, I'm From Cleveland, So I've Always Loved Sausage And Red Meat And All Of That Stuff, So Now I Find Myself Not Eating Any Of That, No Red Meat, No Sausage. It's Basically A Vegetarian Diet With A Little Bit Of Fish. I Drink Quarts Of Carrot Juice, Quarts Of Cranberry Juice, Endless Amounts Of Water And Nothing Else.

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I Think One Of The Things That I Was Struck By Was That Joe Has The Financial Wherewithal To Go Check Into Some Expensive Clinic, Go Into Rehab And Beat These Addictions But He Didn't. He Sort Of Designed His Own, You Know, Sort Of Rehabilitation At Home. And Anybody Could Do What He Did. When He Felt Like Having A Cigarette After He Ate, He Would Get Up And Walk. At Cocktail Hour When He Used To Have A Drink And Watch The News, He Stopped Watching The News. He Couldn't. He Couldn't Watch The News And Not Have A Drink And A Cigarette. He Would Walk.

I Have Always Been Fascinated By The Corruption Of Power.

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Bette Davis Had A Phrase That Called It "cigarette Smoking Acting" .

I Think It's Terrible To Show That To Kids. It's - I Think You Should - If You - If You Do A Piece Where Something Violent Happens And Someone Dies Or Is Badly Injured, You Must Show The Pain.

That's Sort Of What I Felt... I Miss Drinking, I Thought Bars Were Truly Holy Places.

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.

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I Have Only One Loyalty - To My Writing. I Never Wanted To Be The Head Of A Studio Or A Producer.

I Have My Own Religious Bond With The God In My Own Head.

I Have Been An Accomplice To The Murders Of Untold Numbers Of Human Beings. I Am Admitting This Only Because I Have Made A Deal With God. Spare Me, I Said, And I Will Try To Stop Others From Committing The Same Crimes I Did.

Fact Is We Went On To Do Other Things. But We Still Wanted To Do Our Success Like Rock'n'roll Stars.

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I Do Want To Make A Special Appeal To Women Movie Stars To, I Think, Have A Special Responsibility These Days To Stop Smoking, Not To Do It Up On Screen Because The Example That's Being Set Is Really An Awful Example.

I Always Try To Do True Endings And That's Where I Got Into Trouble Always Because Hollywood Wants To Do Happy Endings.

I Was Surprised By How Warm The Response Was, Even Among Studio Heads, Who Said They Really, We Do Have To Do Something About Glamourization Of Smoking.

I Think The Main Issue Is That A Lot Of The Stars Today Are Very Addicted, And They Simply Feel More Comfortable Smoking As They Act.

I Worry That We Are Approaching A Time When That Which Is Shocking Is Squeezed Out By The Stalinism Of Political Correctness.

No One Is Going To Tell A Movie Star To Smoke Or Not Smoke Because They Can Do Whatever They Want.

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.

I Started Making A Point Earlier That Women's Cancer Rates Are Skyrocketing, And We Have Some Women Movie Stars, Young Women Movie Stars, Who Are Smoking In Many Of Their Movies.

All Has Changed, Thanks To Joe Eszterhas' Life-threatening Battle With Throat Cancer. He Announced In "the New York Times" That He And Hollywood Had Blood On Their Hands And Now Eszterhas Is Crusading To Stop Hollywood's Glamorization Of Smoking.

And The Inner Dynamics Of Hollywood Are Like Politics. Say You Give A Script To A Group Of Executives - They All Sit Around, Afraid To Voice An Opinion, Saying Nothing, Waiting To Know What The Consensus Is. Just Like Focus Groups, Opinion Polls Or A Cabinet.

Bill Klinton Was The Ultimate Rock Star As President. I Don't Think As A Result Of His Presidency We Will Ever Have A Rock Star As President Again. In The Same Way That We Will Never Get Involved In Another Vietnam.

I'm Not Suggesting At All That We Take Away All Of The Characters' Vices. I Am Suggesting That This Particular Vice Is So Insidious, So Nefarious, And So Deadly That Simply By Glamorizing It Or Poisoning Our Young Adults, And I Think It's A Very Separate Category, But In No Way Am I Suggesting That We Move On From Banning Smoking In Movies To Banning Drinking, You Know, Or Whatever Else We Want To Do.

Joe Lieberman Was Threatening Censorship. What I'm Arguing Is That If The Creative People In Hollywood Themselves Have A Responsibility, Have A Moral Responsibility In Terms Of Smoking, Not To Show Smoking In Movies.

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.

Your Characters Get Angry At You If You Speak About Them And Stop You From Giving Birth To Them On The Page In Revenge. Real Writers Sit Down And Write. Wannabe Writers Sit Around And Talk.

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There's No Doubt In My Mind That Bill Clinton Will Stop Smoking Cigars, Will Never Smoke Them Again, As A Result Of What He Did With That Cigar.

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I Had Read Too Many Memoirs That Were Written After The Writer Or The Director Was Past His Or Her Prime.

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There Are Certainly A Lot Of Sins To Be Taken On. To Take On Smoking And Movies Is A Weighty Enough Thing, I Think, And It's One I've Experienced, And It's What's Caused Me To Live In-with My Voice Maimed For The Rest Of My Life.

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.

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