The Oscar winner reminisces about The Bad News Bears, her generation-defining role in Little Darlings, and more.
She had no idea how much work it would require.
“I hated the clothes they put me in,” O’Neal says of the Depression-era dresses she wore.
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“I screamed and cried.
They cut my hair funny.
I didn’t understand why I had to wear such ugly little boots.”
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“I mimicked Peter throughout the whole film,” O’Neal says.
“He really should have gotten the Academy Award.”
The Bad News Bears(1976)
TacklingThe Bad News Bearspresented a different challenge for O’Neal.
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“Michael wasn’t going to tell me how to do every line.
He wasn’t going to tell me how to react,” she says.
“I just used my own personality.”
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“I was really scared when he yelled at me,” she recalls.
“I had never seen him like that.
I was really upset, and it really hurt to have my elbow in the ice water.”
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“I never got thrown off the horse.
I think I should have kept doing it.
I would have had a much better life.”
Little Darlings(1980)
The food fight.Matt Dillon’s cuteness.
Making fun of Armand Assante strutting around Georgia’s Madison hotel in a leather weight-trimming belt.
Those were the highlights of O’Neal’s time on Hollywood’s female answer toMeatballs.
On top of that, she felt miscast as posh, prissy Ferris.
Kristy McNichol’s scrappy, streetwise Angel was more her speed.
“I hated the fact that I played the rich girl,” she says.
“I think I could have done the other character better than I did Ferris.”
