Q: Did you have hero figures in your life when you were growing up?

A: Yeah, Abraham Lincoln and George Washington Carver.

Q: What was it about them?

A: Well, one of them invented a hundred and one uses for the peanut, I thought that was neat and the other freed the slaves and I thought that was pretty good too. I used to read biographies when I was a kid and those were the people that were my heroes. I didn't have sports heroes or movie heroes because I didn't go to movies.

Q: If you had to spend the rest of your life on a desert island, what three video tapes would you take with you?

A: Well, if I'm going to a desert island I ought to have one with girls on it. I don't know, I'm not a movie buff. I certainly wouldn't take anything that I was in. It's a very unusual desert island that has electricity and a VCR. I find it hard to twist my mind to that sort of puzzle. It doesn't mean that I don't like movies, I really respect them and like them, it's just hard to get me out of the house.

Q: You have a home in Wyoming where you are away from it all. Are you happiest when you are at home or are you happiest when you're making films?

A: Each provides two different kinds of happiness. One is a very busy happiness, the happiness of being fully engaged in something that means a lot to you and the other one is the happiness of just laying on your back and looking at the sky. They're just two different kinds.

Q: Do you enjoy fishing?

A: I like fly fishing.

Q: What is it about it that you like?

A: I like the challenge of getting the fly in there underneath the branch, setting it down quietly--the practice of a mechanical skill. Trout only live in the best places. They require absolutely clean water. That means you're going someplace that's likely to be very, very nice--and quiet. And I particularly like to fish alone. I've got some streams on my property where I just walk out the door and in five or ten minutes I'll be at a place where I know the fish by name. It's all catch and release so I know where their holes are and everything.

Q: Your wife Melissa Mathison wrote "E.T." Do you think you'll eventually be acting in a film written by her?

A: I don't know why not, it just hasn't come up. We both like working with other people. We spend a lot of time together--more than most couples do. She goes with me on location and I have a lot of time off. Not that we wouldn't enjoy working together. A couple of things have almost gelled, but it hasn't come up.

Q: Was she an outdoors type person before you got married?

A: No. She was a native of Hollywood.

Q: What's next on your agenda?

A: The film version of "Presumed Innocent" to be directed by Alan Pakula. Sydney Pollack is going to executive produce.

Q: Did you read the book first?

A: No.

Q: Have you since read it?

A: Yes I have. I knew the script was coming for a couple of months and I was tempted to read the book first but I thought it best to wait and read the script first because that was what we were going to shoot and if that didn't work--no point in it. I was afraid to infect myself with the knowledge that the book would have brought me so I read the book afterward.

Q: Do you read many novels of your own choosing?

A: The slimmer ones. I don't read nearly as much as I should, as I want to, as I used to.

Q: Do you have a favorite novel?

A: No, I don't really have favorites, no colors, no ice-creams.

Q: Who else is cast in "Presumed Innocent?"

A: Bonnie Bedelia, Gretta Scacchi, Brian Dennehy and Treat Williams. It's going to be a good cast.

Exerpt from a Hollywood Hotline Interview
1989