Burt Reynolds on Cloud 9: "A hell of a good time!"

Superstar BURT REYNOLDS talks about Cloud 9, the movie written and produced by Brett Hudson, Burt Kearns & Albert S. Ruddy, released on DVD by Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment on January 3:

“I suppose it’s flattering if they wrote this character for me. But I think what they maybe had more in mind, is the fact that if I’m good at anything, I think it’s playing a guy who can kind of wink at the audience. Not literally break the fourth wall-- although I have done that-- but who’s having just a hell of a good time. And therefore the audience has a good time. And in reading the script I thought, I think I can have a hell of a good time. There's a lot of fun in this. And the people around me seem to be having a good time.

“It’s an interesting concept. I mean volleyball is one of the fastest growing sports. Beach volleyball is really hot. But my character thinks it needs a little more ‘exotic-ness’ to it. So he has the idea of strippers. I don’t know if anybody’s ever hung on one of those poles with one leg, but it does take an enormous amount of leg strength and a certain athletic ability. So the idea is, if you can take that athletic ability and put it on a beach volleyball game, that possibly might get more male attention. And he’s right. It does get attention.

“And what happens is that the girls, along with getting attention, start getting a little dignity. That happens when you get a little pride about what you’re doing. Not that they don’t have pride that they’re very good strippers, but there isn’t a great pat on the back: ‘Oh, you’re the number one stripper last week and congratulations! Your mother’s very proud of you.’ And if you go whip somebody’s can at beach volleyball and get a chance to maybe play the best in the world. Maybe not beat them but to play them. That’s what happens to them.

“It’s very similar to a picture I did for Al Ruddy where I was a guy who sold out, totally sold out as a football player and was taught to have pride and dignity and love for the game by a bunch of convicts. So in a way, strippers teach my character, Billy Cole, about dignity.”