“He didn’t enjoy it”: Gene Hackman’s biggest issue with ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’

Posted On June 15, 2025June 15, 2025

The late, great Gene Hackman was one of the finest actors to ever grace a cinema screen. When he died in February 2025, the outpouring of love and affection for him and his work was overwhelming. He left a legacy few others could touch, through incredible films like The French Connection, Bonnie and Clyde, and Unforgiven, and will be remembered as a giant of the industry. That being said, he could be a total nightmare sometimes.

Hackman spoke often about how much he loved acting but hated everything that came along with being a famous movie star. As a result, he could be a little, shall we say, cantankerous on set. Barbara Hershey, who worked with Hackman on the film Hoosiers, couldn’t stand the man. He was apparently awful to her while making it, possibly because he didn’t actually want to be there, having only taken the job because he needed some cash. 

Stories like this about Hackman are, unfortunately, rather common. Does that mean he doesn’t deserve the praise he gets? Not at all. He was just a grumpy guy who should have known better. Still, you can’t help but wonder what it would have been like to have seen his rage firsthand. One person who doesn’t need to wonder is director Wes Anderson, who oversaw Hackman during one of his most antagonistic periods.

Anderson wrote the part of the title character in his film The Royal Tenenbaums for Hackman. Royal Tenenbaum is the eccentric father to three children: Chas (Ben Stiller), Richie (Owen Wilson), and Margot (Gwyneth Paltrow). After abandoning them as teenagers, he returns to their lives, revealing he is dying. He has just six weeks to reunite the family before it’s too late. The film itself is brilliant, one of Anderson’s best, and Hackman offers a fantastic performance. Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean he was enjoying himself.

The veteran actor made everyone’s life a living hell on the set. He allegedly grew frustrated with Wilson, who was apparently more focused on flirting with Paltrow than acting. During a scene with Anjelica Huston, who plays his ex-wife in the movie, she was meant to give him a fake slap, but ended up hitting him for real because she was so annoyed with him. The great irony of all this is that Hackman was supposed to be playing somebody atoning for their previous sins, instead of creating a bunch of new ones. 

According to the director, there was one thing that bothered his star above everything else. “Gene was very annoyed about the money,” Anderson told The Times, explaining, “He was furious. Also, he didn’t want to do the film anyway. I talked him into it—I just didn’t go away… He didn’t enjoy it.” Unfortunately for him, the other big stars agreed to the same rate, so Hackman had no choice but to go along with it. This friction seemingly never went away, as Anderson revealed that, once filming wrapped, Hackman left the set without saying goodbye.

It wasn’t all bad news, however. The director of symmetry revealed that the last conversation he ever had with Hackman was shortly after The Royal Tenenbaums was released. “He liked it,” he said, “but he told me he didn’t understand it when we were shooting.” In the world of Gene Hackman, that’s about as close as you were going to get to a compliment.

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