"Took the Method way too far"

Date: Mon, Mar 4, 2002 10:19 AM

From: "Col. Sphinx Drummond" <sphinx@subgenius.com>

I always liked the movie Deliverance, it works on many

levels. I'm not reading Burt Reynolds' "My Life" but I

came across some excerpts and found this to be pretty

crazy regarding the rape scene in Deliverance.

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Burt Reynolds on Bill McKinney, with whom he worked in

the drama Deliverance (1972):

"I thought the other guy, Bill McKinney, was a little

bent. I used to get up at five in the morning and see

him running nude through the golf course while the

sprinklers watered the grass. A strange dude, he moved

to L.A. after Deliverance and worked in a lot of

pictures of Clint Eastwood. He always played sickos,

but he played them well. With my dark sense of humor, I

was kind of amused by him. But as we got closer to the

rape scene, I caught him staring at Ned Beatty in an

odd, unnerving way. Ned would see it, and look away."

"The day before we shot the scene I noticed McKinney

hovering beside Ned and sat down between them. I wanted

him to see I was Ned's friend. No different than in the

script. Then I asked him how he planned to handle the

rape scene. McKinney turned out to be a pretty good guy

who just took the method way too far. Staring straight

at Ned, he whispered, 'I've always wanted to try that.

Always have.' Ned shouted , 'John!Oh, John!'. In his

brilliance, Boorman reassured Ned but also brought in

several additional cameras, knowing Ned wasn't going to

give him a second, third or fourth take. Ned was only

going to do the brutal scene once. When it came down to

shooting it, Cowboy and McKinney were hands-down

brilliant. Scared the shit out of everybody who saw the

movie. People crawled out of the theater. None of that

creepy 'Squeal, piggy, piggy' stuff was in the script.

But McKinney, I swear to God, really wanted to hump

Ned. And I think he was going to. He had it up and he

was going to bang him. It's the first and only time I

have ever seen camera operators turn their heads away.

Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore. I ran into the

scene, dove on McKinney, and pulled him off. Boorman,

hot on my tracks, helped hold him down. Ned, who was

crying from both rage and fear, found a big stick and

started beating him on the head. Half a dozen guys

grabbed Ned and pulled him away. We separated the two

of them and let things cool off."

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-Col. Sphinx Drummond TWSR

Original file name: Took the Method way too far.txt - converted on Friday, 20 September 2002, 16:09

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