Gene Hackman 'Loved Being an Actor' but Everything Else About the Craft 'Drove Him Crazy,' Director Says

Mar. 15, 2025

Gene Hackman in 1992.Photo:Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty I

Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty I

Acting was everything toGene Hackman.

The late actor, whodiedlast month at the age of 95, was unwaveringly dedicated to his craft, but found certain parts of the gig frustrating, director Barry Sonnenfeld recalled toBBC Newsin an interview published on Saturday, March 1.

In the story, Sonnenfeld, 71, and others in the film business remembered working with Hackman, who, in theMen in Blackdirector’s words, “loved being an actor, and hated all the stuff that surrounds being an actor.”

Among the “stuff” Hackman could do without were the hours he would often have to spend in the hair and makeup trailer, said Sonnenfeld, who directed Hackman in the 1995 crime comedyGet ShortyalongsideJohn TravoltaandDanny DeVito.

“He had this conflict,” the director recalled, “in that he was this brilliant actor but he hated the tropes of what it took to act in movies.”

Director Barry Sonnenfeld.Todd Williamson/Getty

The late acting icon, Sonnenfeld told BBC News, “hated putting on makeup,” but it didn’t stop there. “The putting on of wardrobe,” he also despised, along with “the wardrobe person after takes, taking their lip brush and rubbing down their wardrobe” and “the makeup person recombing his hair while he’s talking to me.”

“All that sort of fussy hair and makeup and all that stuff,” the director said. “I think that drove him crazy.”

Along with touch-ups,The Royal Tenenbaumsstar also disliked notes from studios and scriptwriters, usually rejecting them altogether in favor of his own acting instincts, Sonnenfeld said.

He would remove any instructions on how his character should deliver his lines because, Sonnenfeld told BBC News, “he didn’t want any screenwriter to tell him how he was supposed to feel at that moment.”

Gene Hackman (left) and John Travolta in ‘Get Shorty’ in 1995.Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Getty Images

“So he had unique cut and pasted scripts that had no information from the writer about anything,” the director added, “because he wanted to make those choices, not the writer.’

The legendary actor also clashed with those who, in his opinion, didn’t take the craft as seriously as he did — which included Travolta, according to Sonnenfeld. Recalling the actors' time working onGet Shorty, the director told BBC News, “Gene was a consummate actor, both technically and artistically. So he came to set every day knowing his lines.”

In one instance, the director recalled, Travolta asked Hackman what he had done the previous weekend. “Nothing except learn the lines,” the late actor said, which theGreasestar subsequently called “a waste of a weekend,” per the director.

And theGet Shortystars only clashed more over their different approaches as filming continued, Sonnenfeld said.

Gene Hackman.Vera Anderson/WireImage

Vera Anderson/WireImage

“For the next 12 weeks, he would yell at me whenever John didn’t know his lines,” the director recalled to BBC News. “But he’s great in a movie. And I knew he was never really mad at me.”

Hackman echoed Sonnenfeld’s sentiment about his love of acting — and disdain for much of the filmmaking process — in a interview withReutersin 2008, four years after he retired from acting in 2004 with more than 75 films and two Oscars under his legendary belt.

When asked if he missed acting, the late star said, “Yes, I do. I miss the actual acting part of it, as it’s what I did for almost 60 years, and I really loved that.”

“But the business for me is very stressful,” Hackman explained at the time. “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.”

Betsy and Gene Hackman in 1991.Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty

Ron Galella, Ltd./Ron Galella Collection via Getty

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Upon finding Hackman and his wife’s dead bodies, the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s office confirmed to PEOPLE thatfoul play was not suspectedthough investigators are not ruling it out.

Cause of death has yet to be determined and there is anactive and ongoing police investigation, with much of the case’s progress pending autopsy and toxicology results.

source: people.com