Dreyfuss Confesses: "I was a bad guy for a number of years."
As the last living member of the main cast and crew of the Orca, it’s always fun to hear find new interviews with Hooper himself, Richard Dreyfuss. In an interview for the Guardian, Dreyfuss discussing acting, his relationship with Steven Spielberg, ‘those accusations’ and #metoo.
Below is an excerpt from an interview that David Smith held with Richard Dreyfuss on behalf of the Guardian. Link to full interview below.
At just 29, Dreyfuss became the then youngest ever winner of the best actor Oscar for The Goodbye Girl, in which he played an abrasive young actor opposite Marsha Mason. He says he bet on himself to win – and won a tidy sum.
“Afterwards, I made an unusual amount of money betting this: ‘Quick, tell me, best actor last year: who was it?’ The answer was me and no one got it. But that really personifies the whole thing because it’s a great night, but that’s all it is. It was a wonderful experience until it was in my hands and then I realised now people would assume that I could do X, Y and Z, as opposed to me trying to prove it. I was much more comfortable trying to prove it.”
Richard Dreyfuss became a household name after starring as shark scientist Matt Hooper in Steven Spielberg’s shark blockbuster ‘Jaws’
Richard’s son Harry went public three years ago with accusations that the actor Kevin Spacey groped his crotch when he was 18. (Spacey has denied this happened.) Dreyfuss tweeted support for his son, which then prompted a writer, Jessica Teich, to accuse Dreyfuss of having exposed himself to her in 1987. He denied the allegation.
Richard with wife Svetlana Erokhin. They exchanged vows in 2006.
Does he welcome the #MeToo movement? “Not at the cost of the loss of due process. Unfortunately, it became immediately equating an accusation being heard as a verdict. Women have been abused by men for millennia, but it’s not something that’s going to be solved by committing an equal or worse crime, which is kicking process into the ocean.
“That’s true of everyone and has very much to do with civics. The fact is that you don’t know civility when you’re born, as you don’t know the Ten Commandments when you’re born. You have to learn them. And so if you’re not taught civility, you won’t choose it. You won’t know that it exists.
