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The Guardian
24-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Samuel L Jackson on shark thriller Deep Blue Sea: ‘I've had many deaths – but everyone remembers this one'
I'd always wanted to be killed in a movie by something big that was chasing me. I missed out on my death scene in Jurassic Park because a hurricane destroyed the set in Hawaii, so I never got to go down and get eaten by a velociraptor. When Renny Harlin told me he was making a horror movie with killer sharks, and that I was going to be the first person to die, I said: 'Great!' It was a good idea – once he'd killed me, it meant any character's life was up for grabs. I had no idea I was going to be as wet as I was. I was in water for a month: it was kind of wild. For the storm scenes, they were dumping water down on us from towers, like big-ass waves flying everywhere. After Stellan Skarsgård has his arm bitten off and we're out on the deck trying to get him on the helicopter, we didn't know they were going to throw that much water. The rehearsals had been very different. As a kid, you go to movies, you watch people die, then you play games where you act out death scenes of your own. You bounce off the walls and stagger around, fall over, pick yourself up off the floor, say something, finally fall down for good - give it a bit of James Cagney. I've had very varied deaths in movies, but everyone remembers this one. It was great being at the premiere, having not told any of my friends, and seeing them react. Usually in movies like that, all the black people get killed early, but in Deep Blue Sea, LL Cool J is the last one alive. That felt like a small victory. I'm making a new movie with Renny, the fourth we've done together, but I hear he's also working on another one involving sharks. I've not had the call about that yet. Maybe he'll bring back the shark that ate me in Deep Blue Sea and have it regurgitate me so I can come back and fight another day. The screenplay reminded me of other films I loved, such as Alien and The Poseidon Adventure – people faced with a huge challenge in a contained space. We shot it with the water tanks that had been built for Titanic at Baja Studios in Mexico, constructing sets that could be sunk on a hydraulic platform. We had hundreds of crew and cast working in wetsuits, and for the first week everyone would religiously get out of the tank whenever they needed to go to the bathroom. But it's horrible climbing in and out of a cold wetsuit, and by the second week, people only seemed to leave the pool for lunch. By then, it had become a giant tank of urine. I wanted the sharks on the screen. We knew about the problems the Jaws crew had with their mechanical shark, which is one of the reasons you see so little of it. CGI was still in its infancy in 1999, but we used it for some of the attack scenes, which now look pretty dated by today's standards. We also shot some footage of Thomas Jane (who played Carter) swimming alongside real sharks in the Bahamas. A company in San Francisco built us fully remote-controlled sharks that would do almost anything we needed: a seven-metre model and two smaller ones. The big one had a 1,000-horsepower engine and must have weighed a ton, so although it was great to have something convincing that the cast could interact with, we had to make sure no one got in its way. Sam and I had become friends making The Long Kiss Goodnight and made a pact to carry on working together. When he heard I was making Deep Blue Sea, he called and said: 'So who am I playing?' I thought: 'Now I'm in trouble.' And we had to add the part of the CEO who financed the research facilities and pays a visit when things start going wrong. Sam's death scene was inspired by Tom Skerritt's in Alien. Tom, playing Dallas, appears to be the hero until he suddenly gets killed halfway through. So that's what we did with Sam – just as it looks like he's about to lead the other characters to safety, we kill him in the middle of his cliched hero speech. At the test screening, people were screaming, then laughing. I had to fight the marketing team, though. They wanted to put that bit in the trailer. I said: 'No! It has to be a surprise.' One thing that didn't go down well with test audiences was the original ending, where Saffron Burrows, as head scientist Susan, was one of the survivors. Deep Blue Sea presents sharks as innocent creatures of the wild and humans as the bad guys, messing with Mother Nature. Hundreds of test cards came back saying Susan deserved to be punished – despite the good intentions, her genetic engineering had caused the sharks to become smarter, leading to all the chaos. I also wonder if her upper-class-sounding English accent was a factor, in that American audiences felt they were being lectured. We had to fix that at very short notice – one day's extra shooting, a few new visual effects, the shark gets Susan and LL Cool J ends up the hero. He wrote a song to play over end credits, too, and I directed the video, which is something I don't usually do. We got away with having his character's foul-mouthed parrot get eaten. I think the reaction would have been different if he'd had a cute little puppy. Deep Blue Sea is out now on 4K UHD and Blu-ray from Arrow Video
USA Today
02-03-2025
- Entertainment
- USA Today
See Gene Hackman's star-studded cast of co-stars: Clint Eastwood, Denzel Washington, more
See Gene Hackman's star-studded cast of co-stars: Clint Eastwood, Denzel Washington, more Gene Hackman, whose acting career began in 1961, shared the screen with many phenomenal co-stars including Clint Eastwood (twice), Christopher Reeve (three times), Barbra Streisand and Ann-Margret. Show Caption Hide Caption Hollywood reacts after Gene Hackman and wife found dead Gene Hackman's death brought a wave of tributes online from Hollywood peers and admirers. In the wake of Gene Hackman's Feb. 26 death, a who's-who of Hollywood have offered tributes to his greatness. Among them: Clint Eastwood, who directed and co-starred with Hackman in "Unforgiven," said of him in a statement to USA TODAY: "There was no finer actor than Gene. Intense and instinctive. Never a false note. He was also a dear friend whom I will miss very much." Need more proof of his talent? During a five-decade career, Hackman held his own with a grand gallery of co-stars. Hackman started early co-starring with Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway in 1967's "Bonnie and Clyde" – he got a supporting actor nomination for his role of Buck Barrow – and in 1970, Hackman got another supporting actor nod in "I Never Sang for My Father," which starred Melvyn Douglas. But he would win a best actor award the following year for perhaps his most famous role and his co-star would get a nomination, too. Here's that combination and some more of Hackman's co-stars. 1971: Roy Scheider in 'The French Connection' Hackman and Scheider play New York City detectives in the 1971 film, directed by William Friedkin. Hackman who won his first Oscar as best actor for his role as James "Popeye" Doyle; Scheider, in the role of Buddy "Cloudy" Russo, earned a supporting actor nomination. Friedkin, who would go on to direct "The Exorcist," won the Oscar for best director and the film won best picture. "(Popeye) was a man who was very driven," Hackman told USA TODAY in 2005. He would return as Doyle four years later in the 1975 sequel, "French Connection II." 1972: Ernest Borgnine and Shelley Winters in 'The Poseidon Adventure' In "The Poseidon Adventure," one of a slew of '70s blockbuster disaster films, Hackman played a reverend who led fellow passengers/co-stars including Shelley Winters, Ernest Borgnine, Stella Stevens, Red Buttons to the upper reaches of the capsized ship. 1972: Lee Marvin in 'Prime Cut' Lee Marvin plays a mob enforcer sent to Kansas City to collected a debt from Hackman, whose role is that of a crooked slaughterhouse operator. Also in the film: Sissy Spacek. 1973: Al Pacino in 'Scarecrow' In "Scarecrow," Hackman's just-released convict, Max, finds a kindred soul in the optimistic sailor Francis (Al Pacino). To prepare for their roles, the actors "literally dressed in old raggedy clothes and hung out on Market Street," in San Francisco, Hackman said. 1974: Robert Duvall and Harrison Ford in 'The Conversation' The late film critic Roger Ebert in "The Great Movies II," wrote Hackman delivered "one of the key performances of a great career," as a surveillance expert in the Francis Ford Coppola-directed thriller. Hackman's wiretapper worries that two people he is spying on will be killed. "You see that this compulsion to do this has left him a shallow guy in ways, and troubled. (He's) not a leading man but a character," he told USA TODAY. "Unfortunately, we don't see those anymore." Also in the film: Duvall, Ford, John Cazale, Teri Garr and Frederic Forrest. 1978: Christopher Reeve and Ned Beatty in 'Superman' Hackman's Lex Luthor served as the foil for Superman (Christopher Reeve) in three "Superman" films including 1980's "Superman II" and 1987's "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace." Also in the films: Margot Kidder, Jackie Cooper and Marlon Brando ("Superman II"). Gene Hackman: His most memorable movie roles: 'The French Connection,' 'Superman' and more 1981: Barbra Streisand in 'All Night Long' Hackman is a middle-aged man who has a fling with a married woman (Streisand). Also in the film: Dennis Quaid and Diane Ladd. 1985: Ann-Margret in 'Twice in a Lifetime' Hackman, who played a steelworker, and producer/director Bud Yorkin both drew on their real-life recent divorces in this film about a man who separates from his wife (Ellen Burstyn) to live with his new flame (Ann-Margret). "We were two men working closely together, going through that same experience," Hackman told USA TODAY. Also in the film: Ally Sheedy and Amy Madigan. 1986: Dennis Hopper in 'Hoosiers' A coach with a checkered past (Hackman) leads a small-town Indiana basketball team to the state finals with the help of reformed town drunk played by Dennis Hopper, who got a supporting actor Oscar nod. Also in the film: Barbara Hershey. 1988: Willem Dafoe in 'Mississippi Burning' Hackman and Dafoe play FBI agents investigating the disappearance of three civil rights workers. "I remember someone high in the civil rights movement telling me how disappointed they were in the movie that it didn't tell all the truth," said Hackman, who earned a best actor nomination. "I told them that movies are compromises." Also in the film: Frances McDormand, who was nominated for best supporting actress, and Brad Dourif. 1992: Clint Eastwood, Morgan Freeman in 'Unforgiven' Hackman as Sheriff "Little Bill" Daggett stands between Eastwood and Freeman, who are out to collect a bounty. The film won the Oscar for best picture. Also in the film: Morgan Freeman and Richard Harris. Gene Hackman: His life in photos: See actor's six-decade career through images 1993: Tom Cruise in 'The Firm' As the head of a prestigious law firm, Hackman welcomes newcomer Cruise in this film based on a John Grisham bestseller. But Mitch (Cruise) soon learns the firm has a secret client. Also in the film: Hal Holbrook, Holly Hunter, Ed Harris, Jeanne Tripplehorn, David Strathairn and Gary Busey. 1995: Denzel Washington in 'Crimson Tide' International intrigue leads to a faceoff on a submarine between its captain (Hackman) and new executive officer (Denzel Washington). Also in the film: James Gandolfini and Viggo Mortensen. 1996: Robin Williams in 'The Birdcage' Gay drag club owner Armand (Robin Williams) and the venue's star Albert (Nathan Lane) are a couple who must play it straight when meeting the family of Armand's son's wife-to-be which includes conservative U.S. senator Hackman. Also in the film: Dianne Wiest, Calista Flockhart, Hank Azaria and Christine Baranski. 1996: Chris O'Donnell in 'The Chamber' In another film based on a John Grisham novel, O'Donnell is a young attorney seeking to prevent the execution of his grandfather, who is in prison for a past Ku Klux Klan bombing. Also in the film: Faye Dunaway and Bo Jackson. 1997: Clint Eastwood in 'Absolute Power' Clint Eastwood directed and starred in this film as a jewel thief who witnesses a murder involving the president (Hackman). Also in the film: Ed Harris, Laura Linney, Scott Glenn, Dennis Haysbert, Judy Davis, E.G. Marshall and Penny Johnson Jerald. 1998: Will Smith in 'Enemy of the State' Smith is a lawyer and Hackman is a surveillance expert who unknowingly get embroiled in the coverup of a politically motivated murder. Also in the film: Jon Voight, Regina King, Loren Dean, Jake Busey, Barry Pepper and Gabriel Byrne. 1998: Paul Newman in 'Twilight' A retired private detective (Newman) is pulled into a long-buried crime by friends played by Gene Hackman and Susan Sarandon. Also in the film: Reese Witherspoon, Stockard Channing, James Garner, Giancarlo Esposito, Liev Schreiber and Margo Martindale. 2000: Keanu Reeves in 'The Replacements' Hackman is hired to coach a team of replacement pro football players when the starters go on strike. He recruits Reeves as quarterback. Also in the film: Jon Favreau and Orlando Jones. 2001: Gwyneth Paltrow, Ben Stiller, Danny Glover, more in 'The Royal Tenenbaums' The patriarch of an dysfunctional family (Hackman) returns hoping to reconcile with his children (played Gwyneth Paltrow, Luke Wilson and Ben Stiller) and wife (Anjelica Huston). Also in the film: Bill Murray, Danny Glover and Owen Wilson, who also co-wrote the script with director Wes Anderson. 2001: Danny DeVito in 'Heist' A jewel thief (Hackman) who had planned to go into retirement is forced to complete another job by his fence (DeVito). Also in the film: Sam Rockwell, Rebecca Pidgeon, Delroy Lindo and Patti LuPone. 2001: Sigourney Weaver in 'Heartbreakers' Hackman is a rich man who gets caught up in a romantic con game run by a mother and daughter, played by Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt. Also in the film: Ray Liotta, Jason Lee, Anne Bancroft, Nora Dunn, Sarah Silverman and Zach Galifianakis. 2003: Dustin Hoffman in 'Runaway Jury' Dustin Hoffman is a lawyer in a jury trial pitted against a jury consultant (Hackman) who is trying to guide the proceedings in favor of a firearms maker. Also in the film: John Cusack, Rachel Weisz, Bruce McGill and Jeremy Piven. 2004: Ray Romano in 'Welcome to Mooseport' Hackman plays the president again, but this time he's a former president running for mayor against hardware store owner Romano. It was Hackman's last role. "Reality stares you in the face when you get to be my age," he said a year after the film came out. "You are playing the grandfather or the great-grandfather, and you're not used to playing those roles, and although I could, it just doesn't appeal to me." Also in the film: Maura Tierney, Marcia Gay Harden, Christine Baranski, Fred Savage and Rip Torn. Contributing: Brendan Morrow Follow Mike Snider on Threads, Bluesky and X: mikegsnider & @ & @mikesnider. What's everyone talking about? Sign up for our trending newsletter to get the latest news of the day
The Guardian
01-03-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
From Unforgiven to The Firm: Guardian writers pick their favourite Gene Hackman movies
Almost five minutes go by in The French Connection before we get a good look at Gene Hackman. Various other operators come and go in William Friedkin's gritty and unsettling procedural – based on a real heroin sting – before Hackman's Detective Jimmy 'Popeye' Doyle emerges from behind an ill-fitting undercover Santa Claus outfit, like a background player busting into his first lead role. It's as fitting an entrance as ever for Hackman, leveling up after his supporting work on TV and films like Bonnie and Clyde. And he gives a performance that sets the tone for his whole career, playing the brutal and racist cop, a morally murky figure who just doesn't sit right as the hero of the story. Many of the qualities that made Hackman so great in later villainous roles – the way he moves like a menace with a devilishly charming grin, slipping so easily from comforting to antagonizing – are in Doyle. That detective's infamous query, repeatedly grilling suspects about picking their feet in Poughkeepsie, is as mischievously disorienting as Hackman's onscreen presence. Radheyan Simonpillai As an 11-year-old of a nervous disposition, The Poseidon Adventure was a sight to behold. Possibly the first disaster movie I saw, and certainly the first Gene Hackman film, it went straight to the heart of those pre-adolescent terrors: Would the cross-channel ferry stay upright? Was there a priest about who could save everyone's skins? Was there an Olympic swimming champion concealed inside someone's unlikely looking mum? Hackman would of course make much better films, both before (Bonnie and Clyde, Lilith, The French Connection) and after (take your pick), but for sheer messianic fervour there's nothing to match it. The amazing scene where he yells at the Almighty while trying to turn off a steam valve is one of the all time greats, Gene Hackman at his Gene Hackmanest. His character – a hip, muscular clergyman – was an outdated trope even then (and probably was when Karl Malden did one in On the Waterfront 20 years earlier) but I personally prefer it to sax-tootler Harry Caul, his generally lauded performance of a similar vintage. 'Keep going. Rogo!' Andrew Pulver I was embarrassingly late to The Conversation, despite a youth in which Gene Hackman played an important part, and like many films one only consumes through references and iconography, I developed an impression of what I thought it would be. I was partly right (there is a great deal of both paranoia and the granular details of early 70s surveillance tech) but I was mostly wrong. I had assumed a grander tale of a more complex conspiracy but what I found was something smaller and sadder, a thriller second and a character study first, one of a low-key everyman wrecked by guilt and cursed by loneliness. Hackman's Harry Caul is a man whose greatest skill – the 'best bugger on the west coast' – is something that will never bring him peace, just permanent anxiety. He knows how unsafe the world can increasingly be – it's his job to further make it that way, and this distrust leads him away from potential relationships and toward an internal unravelling. Hackman plays this with poignance, carrying the visible, shoulder-crippling weight of what he's been forced to live with, avoiding the cheap, nervy mannerisms many others would lazily employ. The ending is one of dramatic combustion but there's also a calm in Harry realising that his overbearing control was just an illusion. It's not about giving up, it's more about accepting life's limitations and trying to find peace within them. Benjamin Lee Gene Hackman's second collaboration with director Arthur Penn revolves around some convoluted business with illegally imported indigenous artifacts from the Yucatán peninsula, but the ne plus ultra of New Hollywood downers is really the story of a beaten-down man working his way to the end of his rope. Introduced in decline as past-his-prime former football player turned PI turned cuckold Harry Moseby, Hackman spends the film on defense, the substance of his performance resting in his efforts to stave off undesirable parts of himself: his physical deterioration following a recklessly spent youth, his bitterness toward women, his cynicism amplified by the cruelty and greed and statutory incest all around him. We leave him on a dour note, bleeding out and spinning in impotent circles, but Hackman shines in the asides of sardonic wit delivered with a hangdog almost-smirk, which now cement his legacy with a dozen classic soundbites. Of a night at the movies: 'I saw a Rohmer film once. It was kind of like watching paint dry.' When asked who's winning an anemic football game: 'Nobody. One side is just losing slower than the other.' Offering cold comfort to a wayward teen: 'I know it doesn't make much sense when you're 16. Don't worry. When you get to be 40, it isn't any better.' We could go on. Charles Bramesco No film has done more to shape American sportswriting than Hoosiers. Scribes of my generation in particular proudly boast of wearing out VHS copies of the film in adolescence, and how those ad infinitum replays destined them to a future of sweating out press deadlines from some of the best seats in the house. But Hickory High's unlikely march to the Indiana state basketball championship doesn't become the too-good-to-be-true story that sportswriters look for in every gym without Hackman bringing it home as Normal Dale, the disgraced college coach tasked with turning around the team. When sportswriters take note of actual coaches sermonizing about playing the game 'the right way', it's because we can't help quoting Coach Brown when we hear him. And though the character may take inspiration from flesh-and-blood Hoosier state personalities – Indiana coach Bobby Knight, not least – it was Hackman who ultimately made Coach Dale complex, compassionate and imminently worth rooting for. Coach Dale's disciplined, team-first approach may have gone out of style decades ago ('There's more to the game than shooting!' he famously groaned), but Hackman at the top of this acting game lives for all time. Andrew Lawrence Hackman's shady sheriff is the lawman in the small town of Big Whiskey, where the ladies of the saloon demand justice after one of them is assaulted by a passing cowpoke. He's entirely the low-key psychopath Eastwood's antiheroic western deserves, a man capable of plausible affability but then, with a sudden darkening of his mood, callous rough justice. First he outrages the sex workers by attempting to appease them with horse-trading, then he applies his boots to the faces of elderly mercenaries like Richard Harris's English Bob who come to collect the bounty. In one chilling scene, Bill sneers as he forces Eastwood's feverish Will Munny to slither out of the saloon on his belly into the mud. Disarmingly, he's often quite likable. He's an inept amateur housebuilder, ham-handedly manufacturing himself a porch where he can pass his retirement admiring the sunset, or a vivid raconteur, impressing a hack writer with by factchecking some overcooked yarns of the good old days. Similarly, Hackman resists the temptation to overplay this double-sided character, and this Oscar-winning performance is all the more unsettling for it. Pamela Hutchinson As Avery Tolar, a senior partner at a sinister Memphis law practice in The Firm, Hackman haunts Mitch McDeere, the idealistic young recruit played by Tom Cruise, like the ghost of his own corrupt future, when boozing and womanizing will be his only means of muting his guilty conscience. In order to survive at the firm – quite literally, Mitch will learn – he must embrace its rogue culture of mobbed-up criminality and Avery is Mitch's mentor through the process, walking him through the legal shortcuts he'll need to master in order to serve his wealthy clients. He also has an eye on Mitch's wife (Jeanne Tripplehorn), despite their age difference, which speaks to a life where he's constantly rewarded for his ethical compromise. Yet Hackman plays Avery with an unmistakable world-weariness that's fully revealed in a moment when he seems to remember the man he used to be and willingly pays the toll for his sins. Scott Tobias It's become a bit of a naysayer cliche to claim that Gene Hackman was the last actor to really bring a Wes Anderson character to life within the writer-director's hermetically sealed, tightly controlled environment. But while I don't agree with all that, there is inarguably something special about Hackman's performance in The Royal Tenenbaums as the shifty, irascible patriarch of a genius family he doesn't seem to understand (at least not at first). As Royal Tenenbaum, a deeply flawed man who is nonetheless – unlike his depressive adult children – unburdened by faded memories of prodigious achievement, Hackman's unfussy, straight-ahead acting style perfectly cuts through the movie's deadpan melancholy and enhances it at every turn. Though he was great in plenty of comedies, Hackman was rarely pitched this many comic fastballs, every one of which he knocks out of the park with a crisp crack, helping to make Tenenbaums Anderson's most quotable film. ('I'm very sorry for your loss. Your mother was a terribly attractive woman.' 'It's still frowned upon, but then, what isn't these days, right?' 'That's the last time you put a knife in me!' – and so on.) And though Royal is more two-bit conman than precocious prodigy, he's still a deeply Andersonian creation: a man so fixated on his vision that he will self-consciously engineer his own redemption arc, even if it means faking a cancer diagnosis. When Hackman shows that shamelessness giving way to tenderness at the end of the film, demonstrating gentle empathy to his distraught son Chas (Ben Stiller), The Royal Tenenbaums becomes not just Anderson's funniest film, but one of his most moving, too. Jesse Hassenger
Fox News
01-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Fox News
Gene Hackman's 5 most memorable Hollywood roles, from 'The French Connection' to 'Superman'
During his illustrious 40-year Hollywood career, legendary actor Gene Hackman left his mark on cinema. With his versatile range, Hackman took on famous roles, from tough guy parts to villainous characters, heroes and even a coach. The two-time Oscar-winning actor was found dead along with his wife, classical pianist Betsy Arakawa and their dog in their Santa Fe, New Mexico, home Wednesday afternoon. Hackman was 95 at the time of his death, and his wife was 63. Hollywood mourned Hackman, who boasted over 100 acting credits from his storied career, as one of the greats. Bill Murray, Dustin Hoffman, Francis Ford Coppola and others publicly paid tribute to Hackman as questions surrounding the movie star's death remain. Hackman's movie credits include "The Birdcage," "Unforgiven," "Mississippi Burning," "Crimson Tide," "The Poseidon Adventure," "Bonnie and Clyde," "I Never Sang for my Father," "Young Frankenstein," "Reds," "The Quick and the Dead" and "Enemy of the State." Here's a look back at a few of his memorable roles. In the 1971 film, directed by William Friedkin, Hackman portrayed narcotics detective Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle. Hackman was recognized for his Oscar-winning performance in the film by actor Viola Davis, who paid tribute to the legendary actor after his death. "Loved you in everything! 'The Conversation,' 'The French Connection,' 'The Poseidon Adventure,' 'Unforgiven' — tough yet vulnerable. You were one of the greats. God bless those who loved you. Rest well, sir," she wrote on social media. In the 1974 film, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, Hackman took on the role of Harry Caul, an audio surveillance expert in San Francisco who stumbles upon a murder plot. Coppola mourned the loss of Hackman. "The loss of a great artist, always cause for both mourning and celebration: Gene Hackman a great actor, inspiring and magnificent in his work and complexity, I mourn his loss, and celebrate his existence and contribution," he wrote on Instagram with a photo of Hackman on a movie set. Hackman leaned into his sports side when he portrayed a basketball coach in the 1986 movie "Hoosiers." Directed by David Anspaugh, Hackman played Norman Dale, a basketball coach who failed at the college level and got another shot at an Indiana high school. In 2001, Hackman took on the role of Royal Tenenbaum, a disbarred lawyer trying to reconnect with his estranged children through an elaborate lie, taking his grandsons out for a day of mischief, riding on the back of a trash truck, go-karting through New York, crossing the street on a don't-walk sign, shoplifting milk at a bodega, throwing water balloons at passing taxis — set to Paul Simon's "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard." Hackman's co-star, Luke Wilson, paid tribute in a statement to Fox News Digital after his death. "Marine. Actor. Legend. Gene Hackman could do it all. He stands alone on the mountain with Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson," Wilson said. Hackman portrayed notorious villain Lex Luthor in the 1978 film "Superman." Starring alongside Christopher Reeve, the action-comedy smashed the box offices at the time. Hackman went on to reprise his role in 1980's "Superman II" and 1987's "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace."
The Independent
28-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Gene Hackman: A character actor who was spellbinding as tough guys and fools
Hollywood star Gene Hackman, known for The French Connection, Mississippi Burning and The Poseidon Adventure, was a character actor who often played tough guys before finding his comedic stride in films like The Royal Tenenbaums and Superman. The two-time Oscar-winner was found dead on Wednesday afternoon in Sante Fe, New Mexico, at the age of 95, along with his wife Betsy Arakawa, 65, local police said. Born in San Bernardino, California, his parents divorced early and he later lived with his British-born grandmother Beatrice Gray in Illinois. He would join the United States Marine Corps as a teenager, where he spent four-and-a-half years as a field radio operator, before coming back to California where he met and studied with Dustin Hoffman. Hackman and Hoffman would enter the stage and compete for roles in New York along with Robert Duvall. Hoffman told the PA news agency in 2017: 'I never thought that I would get hired when I was starting out. 'Bob Duvall, Gene Hackman and myself, we were hoping just to make a living, off-off Broadway, off Broadway, we never thought any of this would happen.' Hackman would have small early roles in Lilith opposite Warren Beatty, and period drama Hawaii with Irish actor Richard Harris. He got his big break in 1967 true crime film Bonnie And Clyde as Barrow Gang member Buck Barrow, opposite Beatty and Faye Dunaway as the outlaw lovers. This would also earn him his first Oscar nod for a supporting role, and lead him on to parts in neo-noir The Split, and the western The Hunting Party alongside British stars Oliver Reed and Ronald Howard. Hackman would quickly follow this up with another Academy Award nod for 1970 drama I Never Sang For My Father, where he played middle-aged college professor opposite US actor Melvyn Douglas. That same decade, he was back at the Academy Awards – competing for best actor this time, with the role that would define him – Jimmy 'Popeye' Doyle, a brutal police detective whose car chase scene in 1971's The French Connection would inspire many other movies. The Oscar-winning action thriller, which sees Hackman and Roy Scheider as New York City Police Department detectives, was inspired by true events surrounding drug crime and the mob world. When he picked up the Academy Award, he kept it simple by thanking his acting teacher George Morrison, and The French Connection director William Friedkin, who he said talked him out of quitting. Hackman would follow the movie up with the 1975 sequel French Connection II, which saw the character Doyle travel to France to track down a drug dealer. During the 1970s, he had a leading role in The Poseidon Adventure as the brave Reverend Frank Scott and a memorable cameo as the blind man in Mel Brooks' horror spoof Young Frankenstein. He also appeared in crime thriller Prime Cut, as well as Sir Richard Attenborough's Second World War epic A Bridge Too Far, alongside Sir Michael Caine, Sir Sean Connery and Sir Anthony Hopkins. For many audiences, he will be remembered as the zany criminal mastermind and businessman Lex Luthor in Superman: The Movie (1978), and Superman II (1980), opposite Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent / the Man of Steel. Another leading Oscar nod came for 1988's Mississippi Burning for his turn as an FBI agent who is not afraid to use every means at his disposal to investigate the murders of three Civil Rights Movement activists in the 1960s. His final Oscar win came as best supporting actor for Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, in which he played the mean-spirted lawman Sheriff 'Little' Bill Daggett. Again, he kept it simple in his speech at the 1993 Oscars ceremony by thanking his fellow cast mates Richard Harris, Morgan Freeman, Frances Fisher, and 'especially' Eastwood, who starred in the picture as well as directing. 'I'd like to dedicate my part of this evening to my uncle Orin Hackman,' he added. 'He was a wonderful guy. Thank you very much.' Later roles included the 1981 French psychological thriller Garde A Vue, 1995 military thriller Crimson Tide, the 1996 Robin Williams comedy The Birdcage, 2000 mystery Under Suspicion, and the John Cusack-starring courtroom drama Runaway Jury (2003). Wes Anderson's 2001 film The Royal Tenenbaums saw him play the self-absorbed patriarch Royal Tenenbaum opposite Luke Wilson, Ben Stiller, and Gwyneth Paltrow as his children. Hackman was lauded for his comic performance in the movie, going on to win a Golden Globe for best actor in a musical or comedy. His final film role was in the 2004 political satire Welcome To Mooseport, which followed him being honoured with the Golden Globes' Cecil B DeMille Award in 2003 for his 'outstanding contributions to the world of entertainment'. In 2008, he told Reuters he missed the 'the actual acting part of it' before adding: 'But the business for me is very stressful. 'The compromises that you have to make in films are just part of the beast, and it had gotten to a point where I just didn't feel like I wanted to do it anymore.' The actor was a Democrat voter, but remarked to CNN presenter Larry King, that he supported Republican president Ronald Reagan, whom he called 'a beautiful American' after meeting him at the White House. Hackman had three children with his first wife, Faye Maltese. In 1991, he married Arakawa, and they lived together in Sante Fe.
