Q 13

PLAYBOY: What's a decent interval between a film's theatrical run and its appearance at the video store? Are you aiming for a Burns shelf at the local Blockbuster?

Edward Burns: It's not so much how fast you go to video, it's how long you were in the theaters. We nicknamed No Looking Back "Nobody Saw It." It was in theaters for, I think, six hours. Two showings. That hurt. Sometimes they're turning films around quickly--even big movies that are successful. We held on to one screen in New York with McMullen for almost six months. It would be pretty cool to get a shelf one day. I just hope that 25 years from now there will be somebody saying that this guy had a point of view, that he told stories and had he not been here, we would not have heard about or seen these people.

Q 14

PLAYBOY: As a former Hamptons landscaper, do you give Spielberg advice on which plants and shrubs flourish in eastern Long Island's salt air?

Edward Burns: I was a landscaper for three summers, and all I did was mow lawns. Unfortunately, Spielberg never asked me to mow his. I didn't meet him until the day before we were shooting Private Ryan. My agent called and said, "Eddie wants to play Reiben." I had been getting pretty consistent acting offers since McMullen, but I had no interest in being an actor. We'd had such a tough time raising money for No Looking Back, everybody was telling me I should take some acting gigs, because then my star would rise, my name would mean more, especially overseas, and it would be easier to raise money for the next smaller, more personal film I wanted to direct. I told Spielberg I had this dream to make something of the Irish American Godfather set against the police department. He pushed me to write that cop movie script, telling me that's the film I had to make. He's another guy who has been great to me. He gave me a deal at DreamWorks.

Q 15

PLAYBOY: The Hamptons have always been a favorite haunt of the wealthy, and summer residents such as Steven Spielberg and Alec Baldwin--plus those occasional visits from Bill and Hillary--have raised the area's profile even more. Isn't the traffic murder out on eastern Long Island these days?

Edward Burns: I've never complained about that crowd. If you know the back roads and you're not into the chichi crowd, you'll never run into those people. I spent every summer of my life out there. We did two weeks in Montauk every summer, whether it was the State Park or Shepherd's Neck or the Briney Breezes on Old Montauk Highway, a big cop vacation hotel. In college you'd rent a place with four of your buddies. You'd all live in one room and sleep on the floor, get a job busing tables or landscaping. I bused tables for two summers in a restaurant up on Three Mile Harbor Road. There are no beaches as beautiful as those in the Hamptons. It's got great fishing. So go to the beach, go fishing and stop complaining.

Q 16

PLAYBOY: Compare the fishing in Jamaica Bay off Kennedy Airport with the deep blue Atlantic off Montauk, Long Island.

Edward Burns: No difference if you go for flounder. A couple summers ago I started going out of Montauk for stripers and bluefish. The last weekend in August, we'd go out for midnight blues on big party boats. Now me and my dad and my brother go out with a smaller charter. We get a little sun, take a couple cases of beer, catch a couple of fish, bring them home and throw them on the barbeque. We're not serious anglers. We're serious drinkers. I can clean fish, but I'd rather have the mate do it. I'm a little sloppy.

Q 17

PLAYBOY: What's with Ed Burns and Detroit iron?

Edward Burns: I'm into American muscle cars. I've got a 1968 Cutlass with a 454-cubic-inch engine. I garage it in Jersey. In the summer, the roof never goes up. In my neighborhood, when I was in grammar school, all the cool older guys had cool cars, so that's what you wanted. In high school I bought a Skylark convertible with a 350 for $750. But it was a total piece of crap. I love those old cars, but I'm not a gearhead at all. I can change the spark plugs, but I put in a carburetor once and that was a disaster.

Q 18

PLAYBOY: We understand Edd "Kookie" Byrnes made a complaint to the Screen Actors' Guild about your using the name Ed Burns. Did he really feel he'd be mistaken for the writer and director of The Brothers McMullen?

Edward Burns: Yeah. He made the complaint. There's some question of residuals, so even though we spell our names differently, I officially have to be Edward. Which makes my mother very happy. I met Edd last year for the first time. He looks good. He still needs a comb.

Q 19

PLAYBOY: Commitment has been a major theme in your films, yet you've dodged the bullet so far. Are you a beacon of independence?

Edward Burns: There's a great quote from Dawn Powell: "The greatest regret in life is to reach old age and never have found a love great enough to command fidelity." So that is what I strive for.

Q 20

PLAYBOY: Discovering the "hairy ass"--as you've put it--of another guy in the sack with one's wife or girlfriend is sure to be disconcerting. Can you offer advice on how to behave should any of us be so brazenly cuckolded?

Edward Burns: That would be a tough one. Fortunately, I have never in my life come across the hairy ass. Depending upon whether I'd come from a bar or not, you could have two outcomes. One, I leave. The other, he's out the window.