Cocaine 'was almost like coffee': John Landis, Dan Aykroyd talk John Belushi, frantic 'Blues Brother

Cocaine 'was almost like coffee': John Landis, Dan Aykroyd talk John Belushi, frantic 'Blues Brothers' shoot as film turns 40

Kevin Polowy
Senior Correspondent, Yahoo Entertainment
August 3, 2020


The Chicago production of the 1980 action-comedy-musical The Blues Brothers has become the stuff of legend in the four decades since its release, perhaps most notable for its destruction of more than a hundred cars (mostly police cruisers) in filming its epic chase scenes.

It wasn’t just the vehicles, though, that were racing.

In new interviews with the Guardian to celebrate the film’s recent 40th anniversary, director John Landis and his co-writer/star Dan Aykroyd (who played Elwood Blues opposite the late John Belushi’s Jake) elaborated on the cast and crew’s rampant drug use, another thing the shoot became (in)famous over the years.

“At the time, cocaine was a currency. For some of the crew working nights, it was almost like coffee. I never liked it myself but I wasn’t going to police others’ behavior,” said Aykroyd. “We drove John Landis crazy. Sometimes he didn’t know whether we were going to show up for work after the parties.”

That’s not to say Aykroyd didn’t partake: “Everyone did it, including me,” Aykroyd told Vanity Fair in 2013 profile. “Never to excess, and not ever to where I wanted to buy it or have it. [But] John, he just loved what it did. It sort of brought him alive at night – that superpower feeling where you start to talk and converse and figure you can solve all the world’s problems.” ...........(more)

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/blues-brothers-john-belushi-cocaine-john-landis-dan-aykroyd-210735722.html