Editing Burt Reynolds (section)

===Character actor===
After ''Evening Shade'' ended in 1994, Reynolds played the lead in a horror movie, ''[[The Maddening]]'' (1995). However, he gradually became more of a character actor – he had major support roles in ''[[Citizen Ruth]]'' (1996), an early work from [[Alexander Payne]], and ''[[Striptease (film)|Striptease]]'' (1996) with [[Demi Moore]]. He had to audition for the latter. The movie's producer later said, "To be honest, we were not enthusiastic at first. There was the hair and his reputation, but we were curious."<ref name="deliverance"/> Reynolds got the role and earned some strong reviews.

Reynolds was a supporting actor in ''Frankenstein and Me'' (1996), ''[[Mad Dog Time]]'' (1996), ''[[The Cherokee Kid]]'' (1996), ''[[Meet Wally Sparks]]'' (1997) with [[Rodney Dangerfield]], and ''[[Bean (film)|Bean]]'' (1997) with [[Rowan Atkinson]]. He had the lead in ''[[Raven (1996 film)|Raven]]'' (1996), a [[straight-to-video]] action movie. About this time he claimed he was depleted financially, having spent $13 million.<ref name="deliverance">{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/16/magazine/deliverance.html|title=Deliverance|first=Lynn|last=Hirschberg|work=[[The New York Times Magazine]]|date=June 16, 1996|access-date=August 28, 2018|archive-date=August 28, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180828134427/https://www.nytimes.com/1996/06/16/magazine/deliverance.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

In 1996, Reynolds' agent said "Regarding Burt, there's a split between the executives in town who are under 40 and those who are over 40. The younger executives are more open to Burt because they grew up loving ''Deliverance''. But the older executives remember how crazy he was, and they are less receptive."<ref name="deliverance"/> He also hosted segments for the Encore Action premium cable network during the late 1990s and 2000s.