I am an unabashed Burt Reynolds fan. It started well before he starred in Boogie Nights (which is available on the Criterion Channel streaming service)in 1997. I became a fan when I was still a kid in the early ‘80s and saw movies like Smokey and the Bandit and especially Stroker Ace. Yeah, that latter one isn’t exactly his finest work, but I loved it when I was about 10 years old.
On the opposite side of Reynolds’ career achievements from that 1983 movie about a NASCAR driver is Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights. It’s Reynolds’ most acclaimed movie, and the only one for which he was nominated for an Oscar. Critics and fans alike love the movie and his performance as a porn director named Jack Horner. The one person who didn’t love Boogie Nights was Reynolds.
Reynolds Was A Problem On Set
Paul Thomas Anderson has become one of the preeminent directors of the early 21st century and it was his second movie, Boogie Nights, that truly put him on the map. That led to a long career that has included masterpieces like There Will Be Blood, Magnolia, and most recently, 2025’s One Battle After Another, which could very well result in PTA finally winning an Oscar, which he has long deserved. Reynolds, on the other hand, wasn’t impressed with the young director.
According to Boogie Nights cast member William H. Macy, the rumors of Reynolds being a problem on the set were true, as he told Vulture in 2022:
Oh, he wasn’t happy. I think Burt was sort of clueless as to what we were doing.
The problems didn’t end when the production wrapped either, Macy explains:
And he trashed the film after we wrapped — up until the time he got an Academy Award nomination.
It’s amazing how a nomination for the most prestigious award in Hollywood can change someone’s tune, isn’t it? Reynolds, who had been a ‘70s heartthrob and reliable draw at the box office for years, had sort of fallen out of favor with Hollywood in the ‘90s. Though I would argue that his comeback began with 1996’s Striptease, which I argue is criminally underrated, it was 1997’s Boogie Nights that really renewed his status as an A-list star.
Reynolds Never Really Came Around, Though
While Reynolds may have stopped trashing the movie after he was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his performance, he was still trashing Anderson years later. In 2015, while doing publicity for his autobiography, he said:
He was young and full of himself. Every shot we did, it was like the first time [that shot had ever been done].
In 2012, Reynolds clarified things and explained that he liked the movie; he just didn’t get along with Anderson. That remained his opinion, and in an interview with GQ in 2015, when he was asked if he’d ever work with Anderson ever again after his experience on the set of Boogie Nights, he replied:
I don't think so. Personality-wise, we didn't fit.
Sometimes the best art comes out of turmoil and conflict, and there seems to be no better example of that than Burt Reynolds, who passed away in 2018, earning his only Oscar nomination (and winning a Golden Globe) for Boogie Nights, a filming experience he hated.
