‘90s movie Boogie Nights, which chronicled the Golden Age of porn in the 1970s, was a critical hit: garnering three Academy Award nominations, including one for Burt Reynolds as Best Supporting Actor.
In Boogie Nights, Reynolds plays Jack Horner, a successful porn director and father figure to the troubled Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg). The film follows Dirk’s rise to porn superstardom and his subsequent fall from grace, while Jack, who considers himself an artistic filmmaker, is soon forced into producing poor-quality movies for Floyd Gondolli (Philip Baker Hall).
However, in a 2015 interview at a The Guardian Live event, Reynolds revealed that despite the drama movie‘s popularity, he has never seen it — and, in fact, hated both working for the film and with director Paul Thomas Anderson.
Speaking at the event, Reynolds admitted that he has mixed feelings about the adult industry. “I don’t like those people, I feel like they are due for a very hard time because they tried to do legitimate film and they’re never going to be able to,” he said.
“It’s sad, they were very sad people and they showed up a lot of times on set. It’s a one-way street, if you go down that road as an actor, you’re finished.” According to Reynolds, his thriller movie co-star Mark Wahlberg would often walk around set with a fake erection in order to remain engrossed in his character, and revealed that he “hated” Paul Thomas Anderson so much, he refused a role in another project of his: Magnolia. “I’d done my picture with Paul Thomas Anderson, that was enough for me,” he said.