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Although Scott prepared for Patton by reading and watching newsreels, he has no set theories or prejudices about acting. "Actors," he explains, "are the original atom smashers." In other words, people who break down a character or a human emotion into its tiniest components and then reassemble it. "It's schizophrenic," he says. "The first trap is getting too much of yourself into the part. The second is getting too far removed, too technical. The ideal is a combination of both those elements with something else, the ability to get away from yourself, criticize, be brutal with yourself. It's in that third area right there that so many of our people get into their problems, with booze, with women, with dope. I had a liquor problem myself. But I don't feel any real obligation to break into every jail in the country any more. I guess I've mellowed."
* A dim-witted 1966 service comedy co-starring Tony Curtis and Virna Lisi.