His Colleagues Concur: ‘A Director’s Dream’

In an acclaimed acting career spanning more than 40 years, Gene Hackman has not only won the respect and admiration of his directors and fellow actors, but has inspired quite a few stories from the set. Here’s what some of his colleagues say about the man and his craft:

“He comes to a role with a complete understanding of the part. Whatever adjustments you want to make, he makes. He’s a director’s dream because he is so prepared. I pride myself on being a director who is ready to go and he is ready to go.”--Clint Eastwood, who directed and starred in “Unforgiven” and “Absolute Power”

“He has just hit it out of the park so many times. It’s instinctive, I believe. It looks easy, but you have to look at a lot of these roles that Gene has performed. You’ve got to go inside and outside yourself. It’s not just a matter of reading the lines, because he is creating people the way a great painter is creating a great portrait or a landscape.”--William Friedkin, director of “The French Connection”

“When I first met him [on “Superman”] ... I said, ‘Look, Lex Luthor is bald. You want to shave your head so you won’t have to wear a bald cap?’ and he said, ‘No, I’m not going to shave my head. You figure it out.’ We wanted to change his hair in every scene to make Lex Luthor look very vain. I said to him, ‘At least, you’ll shave your mustache off, right?’ He said, ‘No, I love my mustache.’ I thought, ‘God, I’m in for such trouble.’

“So, he came to England for the shoot and I called up the makeup man [Stuart Freeborn] and asked Stuart, ‘Does Gene have his mustache?’ and he said he did. So, I told Stuart, ‘You come down to my office with a mustache kit and put a mustache on me. I had shaved my mustache. I said, ‘Make it the greatest one you’ve ever done.’

“Then I go up to Gene and I say, ‘Do me a favor. The mustache has to go.’ I said to him, ‘You take off your mustache and I’ll take off mine.’ Then I said to Stuart, ‘Shave his mustache’ and Stuart started to shake. So he shaves Gene’s mustache. Then I peeled mine off. Gene looked at me and his neck went red ... and then he started to laugh and he said, ‘I owe you one.’”--Richard Donner, director of “Superman”

“He’s a good reason to go to work in the morning.... I don’t know anyone easier to work with.”--Warren Beatty, star of “Bonnie and Clyde,” who also directed and starred in “Reds”

“I actually did a scene with him in ‘Get Shorty’ that was cut from the movie where I played a movie director. I think it’s on DVD. I just tried, really tried, to stay out of his way because, you know, he’s Gene Hackman. What am I going to say to him people haven’t said to him a million times? Of course, I did end up saying things that people said a million times before to him. I promised myself the whole movie that I was not going to tell him that I’ve seen ‘The Poseidon Adventure’ 20 times when it came out, when, of course, I had to tell him.... I immediately regretted it.”--Ben Stiller, co-star of “The Royal Tenenbaums”

“You talk to my wife and she’ll tell you, ‘God, is he sexy!’ He still has it.”--Tony Scott, director of “Crimson Tide” and “Enemy of the State”