Richard Dreyfuss rips on Bill Murray and AFI Institute

Here's an older article that goes more in-depth on him claiming to be broke.

www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3443983/I-won-Oscar-m-broke-did-Richard-Dreyfuss-star-Jaws-Close-Encounters-squander-fortune-end-scrabbling-work.html

'It's a hard thing to admit,' he says. 'I have a greater body of work than any actor I know. I have created, I don't know, maybe 50 or 60 films that I am intensely proud of. I was very proud of the fact that I could boast that I never worked for money. Now I can't say that. I have to say I've worked for money a great deal recently, because I've had to.'

Case in point, he has admitted to doing movies like "Red" and "Piranha 3-D" for the money.
www.vulture.com/2010/10/richard_dreyfuss_on_red_i_did.html

'I used to feel pretty much in sync with looking like I felt and feeling like I looked. Then something got out of sync,' he admits. 'And now I feel like I'm 38, and I look in the mirror and I'm obviously almost 70.'

This is a problem in Hollywood, and it will get worse, he says. 'First of all, they don't write for 90-year-olds. They don't even write for 50-year-olds. And they don't pay 60-year-olds as well as they do 40-year-olds.'

Isn't it only women who see their careers fall off a cliff after the age of 40? 'Women have it really unfairly,' he accepts. 'You could name on one hand the women whose careers have gone past the age of 35. Leaving aside the English acting community - that's another story; there's always been a craftsman-like respect for actors and actresses in the UK - very few ever go past that age limit. You really only have a shot while you're beautiful.'


He says it's better for men, but not much. 'In America there's a small group of men - De Niro, Pacino, Dustin Hoffman - who have rewired themselves and made themselves a second career, but it's very rare.'

'It's reached a point in film-making where there aren't any good scripts. The most intelligent movies they're making are about mechanical monsters. There are no parts being written now, even for young actors. When you look at something like Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead you see the contrast. That was such a treasure for an actor because it had some of the greatest characters and dialogue ever.'

Hollywood, he argues, doesn't like people who walk away then try to come back. 'It does seem like in California there's a state law that says you're not allowed to quit showbusiness. Anyone who says they're quitting is immediately looked upon as a lunatic. That's what happened to me.' Surely an actor who loves his job and is good at it wouldn't want to quit in the first place though. 'Even in heaven you can get bored,' he says. 'The work... it wasn't something I had to keep doing in order to satisfy me. It was something I had to do in order to satisfy agents and directors and studio heads.'

But it was money, and the need to make it, that brought him back. 'Actually, the truth is hard to say or hear, but I had an amazing amount of bad luck financially and I realised I didn't have the money I had.' This is an understatement. I'm taken aback when he uses the word 'broke'. He doesn't mean on-the-streets broke, ordinary-person broke, does he? He means Hollywood, I-only-have-two-swimming-pools-now broke. 'No, if I use the phrase "I'm broke" it means I'm broke. It means I don't have the money I had. I wanted to retire and take my wife [Svetlana] on cruises. I can't afford that. I want to be able to go to Europe when I want. I can't.'

'I was never good with money. I spent too much and didn't think about the consequences. I was being a young spoiled movie star. When I finally met the business manager I have now, he said, "Didn't anyone ever tell you to take a portion of each salary and put it aside in a special account you can't touch?" and I said, "No." Too bad for me. I didn't think about it.'