Biografia

When he originally auditioned for Animal House (1978), the producers wanted him to play one of the no-nonsense. straight-laced Omegas. However, he adamantly refused, saying, "I'm tired of playing it straight," and sought a role as one of the hard-partying, fun-loving Deltas. He succeeded and got the role of Otter, one of the most fun-loving Deltas of the whole film.

Was the voice of Jonny Quest in the Jonny Quest (1964) series.

Served in the USMC reserves.

For years after playing ladies'-man Otter in Animal House (1978), he had to explain to disappointed fans that, no, that was only a character he played, and he couldn't really offer them sexual advice.

He met his first wife Jennifer Leak when they were co-stars in the movie Appuntamento sotto il letto (1968).

I've stolen something from every director I've worked with. As an actor and a director, you steal from the best. And there's no reason why any shame should be attached to it.

[on starting out in his career as a child actor] Kurt [Kurt Russell] taught me a lot. Basically, Kurt left the business for about five years. He made a lot of money as a kid, then sort of went to be a baseball player. And after that he focused on skiing ... bought a house in Aspen and skied ... And he didn't care about it. My point is that you have to have a real life. I also think one has to reinvent oneself as a performer every five to seven years. I look at my career, and I was a kid actor who did cartoons, then I was a Western actor as a young man, then I was a comedy actor in movies, then a TV-movie actor, then a TV director ... There are different phases ... But I think one has a shelf life of about five to seven years where you're in a series, or you play a character, or you hit in a movie -- and that sort of wears out its welcome after a certain point. Then you've got to put it on its head, reinvent it, find a new approach, otherwise you're just stuck being that guy who did that thing back then. So I've always sought out new challenges. Also, I've tried to have a home life and a family. I raised my kids up in Santa Barbara and got away from the city of Los Angeles so that [the environment] wasn't so crazy for them to grow up in.

Some directors just shoot characters walking around a set, and they think that's all they have to do. That's not it. Howard Hawks and John Ford knew where to put the camera. They knew if the camera was here or there, it tells the story better. And, early on as an actor, I remember sometimes thinking that I'd given a good performance in certain shows, but then when I finally saw my work, it wasn't particularly dynamic. There were flat shots, the directing wasn't very good ... But when I'd work with better directors, who'd stage my scenes differently, who use stronger camera angles, and -- perhaps even though I didn't give what I thought was the best performance -- the result was more dynamic and effective. And I thought, "Ah-ah! He made me a better actor by what he did as a director." So I think my job as a director is to help the actor give his or her best performance, as well as frame it in such a way to enhance whatever they do to create a stronger impact.

[2009, on Fletch - Un colpo da prima pagina (1985)] I got to work with one of my dear friends, Michael Ritchie, who ended up being my next-door neighbor for several years. And Chevy Chase, finally. I'd known Chevy a bit, but I'd never gotten to work with him. Chevy had been a bad boy with a drug problem, and had never really realized his potential. Fletch was the first movie he sort of straightened up on. And Michael was Harvard-educated, 6'6", a brilliant director and political thinker. He was the guy the studio thought could handle Chevy, and keep him in check. And he could. He'd shoot the movie the way he wanted it, then do one take for Chevy. When I worked with Chevy, he'd say, "Just ad lib and try to break me up. Just insult me. Anything." When we were doing his close-up, or when my back was to the camera, I would come up with jokes or quips or anything, to get a real reaction out of him. He was smart enough to know that was gold. So it was great fun working with him and Michael, and getting to see how the two worked together. I think Fletch and Clark Griswold were Chevy's two best roles. He's so incredibly talented and still vastly underused. I don't even know what he's doing now.

[2009, on 1941 - Allarme a Hollywood (1979)] It had a lot of us "Animal House" guys in it. And working with Steven Spielberg, how bad could it be? But it was one of those excessively big movies where every action scene was done and re-done and re-done again. It was so overproduced and overly expensive. And it wasn't terribly funny. I must say Steven was great to me, and I loved working with him. He called me up on the phone and was like, "I want you to be in this movie. There are a couple of parts. You can take whichever one you want. One of them is a main character who is involved in everything, and there's another character who has his own storyline and goes off on his own. He's probably the funnier, more unique character." I said, "Well let me do that second one."

When we started shooting and I read the script, I realized "They could cut this part out in a second." But he's great. Steven's one of the most visually talented and character-oriented directors I've ever worked with. And I learn from him every time I watch one of his movies. Good or bad-and he has made some awful movies-they're never uninteresting. He's made four or five of the greatest movies of all time. Perfect movies, like E.T. or Schindler's List or Saving Private Ryan. I also think Duel is perfect for a television movie. I liked Munich a lot too. So whenever I study a genre of filmmaking, he's the first guy I go to. Even Catch Me If You Can, which is a very lightweight kind of thing, if you just look at the economy of the way he designs his shots and works around actors, the craft is amazing.