Why the Co-Stars of Gene Hackman "Royal Tenenbaums" were "terrified"

The now retired actor would also have reprimanded the director Wes Anderson on the set.


After the success of his second film, the comedy of 1998 Rushmore , director Wes Anderson was determined to improve his game, making a sprawling family drama on an unusual family from New York filled with characters as emotionally stunted that they are intellectually endowed. And for the patriarch of this eccentric group, he had his heart on an actor :: Gene hackman .

The 94 -year -old actor is known Behavior on the bad mood set In a career marked by demanding and often severe roles, and working with Hackman turned out to be a challenge for his co-stars. More than a decade after filming, some of them opened up to experience during The New York Film Festival in 2011 . Read the rest to know why the actors were "terrified" from their father on the screen and estimated that they had to defend Anderson from him.

In relation: This is why you no longer hear Gene Hackman .

Hackman was angry Anderson wrote the role for him.

Gene Hackman in 2001
Sgranitz / Wireimage

Anderson had in mind Hackman in mind While making the part of the dysfunctional patriarch of Chipper Royal Tenenbaum.

"He was written for him against his wishes," said the filmmaker The Wes Anderson collection author Matt Zoller Seitz in an extract shared by Vulture in 2013. When Anderson stretched out to offer the French connection Play the role, it has passed.

"There was no money", Asteroid city The director said, explaining that the actors were paid. When Hackman finally took a meeting with him, Anderson learned that he had also found the writer and the presumptuous director for having written the role with him, saying to him: "I don't like it when people write for me , because you don't know me, and I don't want what you think, it's me. "

However, after more than a year of lobbying, Anderson finally made Hackman move. AE0FCC31AE342FD3A1346EBB1F342FCB

"He was sort of forced to make the film "Anderson admitted during the projection of the 10th anniversary of the Nyff, according to The Hollywood Reporter . "I kept bothering him.

In relation: Joel Mchale says he dislocated Chevy Chase's shoulder in a fight on the set .

His co-stars found him frightening.

Hackman would have turned out to be a challenge even after being disputed, however. Anjelica Huston , who played Royal's wife, Etheline Tenenbaum, said that she had found him scary, describing her apprehension on a scene where the characters fought and Etheline was scripted to slap royal.

"I was particularly terrified because I could say that he was not in a very good mood," she said at the Film Festival, by THR . "In rehearsal, I think I slapped her backhand, then we went ahead and pulled her, and I hit him a very good one. I saw the imprint of my hand on his cheek And I thought he was going to kill me. "

Bill Murray , who played the son -in -law of Tenenbaum, the neurologist Raleigh St. Clair, turned to humor to describe the atmosphere on the set in the middle of the supposed threats of the actor. "I would hear these stories, as" Gene has threatened to kill me today "", he recalls. "" He can't kill yourself, you are in a union. "" Gene threatened to take us all and set fire to us. " "It's a union shoot, it's New York, he can't set you fire." ... "

However, Gwyneth Paltrow , who played Margot Tenenbaum, quickly defended his reputation as a father on the screen. "I loved working with him," she said. "I loved being in the same scenes as him. He was a kind of bears from a guy, but I also found something very sweet and sad in there. I loved him very much. I think I think. That he is one of the greatest actors who have ever experienced. To be in his presence and watch him do his thing. It's like - you know, you are Gene Hackman, you can be in a bad mood [Expletive] . "

He told Anderson "to act like a man".

Wes Anderson in 2023
Dominique Charriau / Wireimage

If Hackman inspired the fear of some of those who acted by his side, he apparently saved his worst behavior for the director who had once tracked him down in his film.

"He told you to go up your pants and act like a man," said Huston Anderson during the panel. And according to Indiewire's account of a distinct meeting of the 10th anniversary for the film, Hackman would insult the director On the set, even referring to him by a severe explanative.

The actors would speak for him, admitted Anderson. "[Huston, Paltrow and Murray] defended me ... at various times, but that makes him bad," he said, adding later, "I feel in a way, by my fault, we have In a way, gene looks bad. "

In relation: Brad Pitt was "volatile" on the "legends of the fall," said the director .

Hackman did not stay in touch with his family of films.

Gene Hackman in 2005
Evan Agostini / Getty Images

The film would become the most acclaimed performance in Hackman since its Oscar -winning turn in 1992 unforgiven , but he would barely celebrate it. Although he won the Golden Globe for the best actor of a musical or a comedy for performance, he attended the ceremony. A decade later, Hackman was also absent from retrospective and participated in any related event. (He is now retired; his last film was 2004 Welcome to Mooseport And his latest global credit was to tell two documentaries in 2017.)

"I do not know that we have heard of or seen Gene since this film," said Huston at the crowd, according to THR .

Despite everything, Anderson shared that he was grateful to Hackman's participation in the photo.

"[Hackman] was one of the things that attracted everyone to this film," he said during the reunion, according to Indiewire. "Whenever we are together and we are talking about the film, we are still talking about him. It is a huge force and I really liked working with him. Even if he was very difficult with me, it was very Exciting to see him start in these scenes. "


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