Walter Hill, The Film That Lit My Fuse: Why Steve McQueen Was The Last Movie Star, Electricity At End Of Eddie Murphy’s Bar Scene In ‘48 Hours’ & Why Audiences Still Come Out To Play For ‘The Warriors’

The Writers Guild on Sunday will present its 2024 Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement to Walter Hill. It seemed a fortuitous time for The Film That Lit My Fuse to tap the iconic writer-turned-director for his formative influences, but mainly to dish on some of the great movies he was part of.

While he’s known as the director of high-testosterone action films ranging from 48 Hours to The Warriors, Last Man Standing and Streets of Fire, Hill was enthused about receiving the WGA lifetime achievement award because he thinks of himself first as a writer.

And there, his scripting credits range from the Steve McQueen-Ali McGraw drama The Getaway to the Paul Newman drama The Drowning Pool and Hard Times, the Charles Bronson-starrer on which Hill made his directorial debut. He also produced and co-wrote Alien, Aliens and Alien 3. Here, he reminisces about those films, and working with some big stars when they ruled the business.