Director Wes Anderson has opened up about the difficult working relationship he had with Gene Hackman during the making of The Royal Tenenbaums in 2001. Speaking to The Sunday Times, Anderson revealed that Hackman was upset over his salary and was reluctant to join the project from the beginning.
“Gene was very annoyed about the money,” Anderson said. “He was furious. He didn’t want to do the film anyway. I talked him into it — I just didn’t go away. Everyone else accepted the pay offer, so Gene just went with it. That’s how it ended up happening.”
Hackman played the title character, Royal O’Reilly Tenenbaum, in the comedy-drama. Anderson was 32 years old at the time, and the film marked his third feature as a director. The cast also included Bill Murray, Ben Stiller, Gwyneth Paltrow, Luke Wilson, and Anjelica Huston.
According to Anderson, the two never spoke after the movie was completed. “Not a word,” he said. “In fact, he left without saying goodbye. He was grumpy — we had friction. He didn’t enjoy it. I was probably too young, and it annoyed him.”
Their final conversation happened just as the film was about to be released. “And he liked it,” Anderson said. “But he told me he didn’t understand it while we were shooting. I wish I’d shown him ten minutes early on. Maybe then he would have said, ‘OK, I get it.’”
Actor Bill Murray, who worked with both men on the film, also spoke about the on-set tension during an appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show following Hackman’s passing in April. “I sympathize with Gene,” Murray said. “To him, Wes was just a punk kid, and Gene had made some of the greatest American movies.”
Murray added that Hackman found the experience frustrating. “He had to work with children, dogs, and Kumar [Pallana], who was a mystery to all of us. They put him in very challenging situations, and he kept asking, ‘What am I doing here with these people?’ But the performance he gave was brilliant. I watched him, and I suffered with him because I saw what he was going through.”
Anderson’s latest film, The Phoenician Scheme, features a supporting role by Murray. The movie will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival and is set to hit theaters on May 30, distributed by Focus Features.
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