Top 44 Hal Needham Quotes

When ‘Smokey’ was released and became a blockbuster, Trans Am sales went through the roof. If you wanted a black Trans Am, you had to wait a minimum of six months. By the time we were ready to shoot ‘Smokey II,’ I was on a first-name basis with Pontiac.

I hate sequels.

I know it looks like Burt walks through his movies, but he doesn’t; he works hard to make it look that way, and the work is tough.

I don’t even consider directing Burt. I just say, ‘Hey, Burt, the camera’s here. Read the joke and let’s get onto the next shot.’

I’ve got more money than I know what to do with.

I know what people like, and fortunately they seem to share my sense of humor.

Here’s the thing that I think really pushed me, was my versatility. Because when I came in to the movie business, all the stunt men were specialists. If you did horse work, that’s all you did. If you did cars and motorcycles, you did that. But when I came in, I taught myself how to do everything.

I don’t cry unless it’s personal.

If a producer has 5 million bucks tied up in a picture, he’s not about to let a guy like Burt Reynolds wreck a car when he can get a dummy like me to do it. But some stars would make good stuntmen. Reynolds is one of them. Bob Fuller and Doug McClure are strong, tough guys with plenty of courage, too.

When the 55 mph speed limit came in and the oil crisis caused fuel rationing, the truckers began to look like the last American cowboys.

I didn’t want to limit my income so I decided to master all aspects of stunting.

I loved acting and wanted to be a leading man. But I decided I’d rather be a big fish in the stuntman pond than a little acting fish. I guess I must have made the right decision.

There’s a difference between action and violence. Violence isn’t fun.

You’ve gotta be careful. People don’t want to be reminded of Vietnam and Korea. We lost thousands of fine young men and didn’t win either of those wars. Nobody wants to hear about them. ‘Apocalypse Now’ and ‘The Deerhunter’ weren’t box-office hits.There was too much violence and blood and gore.

There’s no such thing as a great stunt if there’s no danger involved.

I know one thing; I’ll never win an Academy Award.

Out in Hollywood I’m getting to be regarded as the ‘redneck adviser.’

You can only fall so far through a tree before the limbs become abrasive to your body.

The song ‘Eastbound and Down’ by Jerry Reed is, of course, a personal favorite.

I’d always been a good athlete and I liked getting paid what they paid you for stunts. In those days, they paid you per stunt so I’d try to do as many as I could.

It was bad for a stuntman to have a reputation for being hurt, and worse yet to report it.

I just knew it would get a big laugh when people saw the ‘Flying Nun’ throwing the bird to a highway patrolman.

Anyone who thinks stuntmen are crazy is dead wrong. These guys are calculating. They rig things, they think about different ways of doing it… they’re not afraid.

I love horses, and when the SPCA tells me off I get real mad because I know more about horses than they do. They say you can’t rear a horse up backwards, but I do it so they fall into foam rubber and don’t get hurt at all.

It’s true I don’t play by the rules all the time.

My first job was as a treetopper, and I was so damn good at it they called me ‘Squirrel.’ And then I joined the military and became a paratrooper. And later on in life I raced motorcycles and cars.

I have to understand what I’m doing, and action is so simple and easy for me that I’d be foolish to try something different.

I’m not sure I have the knowledge, the intelligence or the sensitivity to direct a ‘Love Story’ or a ‘Fiddler on the Roof.’

I’ve wrecked a lot of good cars in my day.

Of course when you toss a stick of dynamite at a cartoon character, he can come back to life again in the next frame. Getting the same effect with actors is going to be a lot tougher.

Stuntmen bring a lot to the film industry, especially in action films, but if you start trying to give an Oscar for a stuntman, say he doubled a star, I think that takes away from the star’s value.

I’ve done stunts when I was hurting so bad I couldn’t hardly breathe and yet I would go ahead and do it.

Stunts have to be meticulously arranged. Choreographed. You could take a fight scene and set it to music.

When people say Evel’s a stuntmen I want to throw up. He’s nothing but a daredevil idiot. The only reason he’s famous is because he wrecks his motorcycle every time he rides.

I can go back and fall on my head any time.

It’s the little added bonus of realism that makes the difference between an adequately done stunt and a really convincing one.

The worst was practicing a stunt for John Wayne in ‘McQ.’ I lost two teeth, broke six ribs, cracked a vertebra and punctured a lung. I spent 12 days in the hospital.

There ain’t a director in town who knows action better than I do. That’s not just braggadocio on my part. I’ve been in the business for 25 years, and I ought to know it by now.

You work a lot when you’re hurt when you’re a good stuntman, because you’re going to be hurt quite a bit. And you can’t let a sore leg or a bruise or something stop you, so you just take a Percodan and go to work.

Hell, if I didn’t do stunts, I’d have had to be a bartender, or something else that didn’t pay well.

Is there fear? No, there isn’t. Now, I’ve made mistakes. I’ve broken 56 bones in my body, and each one was a mistake. But when we do stunts, there’s just no room for fear.

I’d say most stuntmen are injured working with horses. They have a one-celled brain and change their minds right in the middle of a stunt no matter how many times they do it right in rehearsal.

If you read books forever and ever, they will never replace what really counts – that’s practical experience.

Coaching a football player is the same as directing an actor. The guy has to follow orders and be able to perform skillfully.