The “awful, crass” comedy series Gene Hackman was obsessed with: “It turns me on”
Thanks to his on and offscreen image as a no-nonsense, no-frills, and no-bullshit kind of guy, nobody viewed Gene Hackman as being a particularly funny guy, which became a source of great irritation.
The actor admitted that he would have loved nothing more than to make more light-hearted and comedic films, but because he’d experienced so much success and earned a reputation as one of his generation’s best for playing hardened, grizzled, and often cynical sorts, those offers didn’t come.
The two-time Academy Award winner did make a few comic capers during his time, and he was a buttoned-down scene-stealer in The Birdcage, but whenever a new script featured pratfalling, slapstick, and ribald humour, Hackman’s name was never anywhere close to the forefront of the casting conversation.
He brought plenty of humour to the screen, though, without having to resort to mugging for the cameras or winking at the audience. His filmography was peppered with more than a few memorable quips and one-liners, but part of the reason they worked so well was that they were being delivered by a man with a face that looked like it had been carved out of granite who almost always took himself very seriously.
If anything, it’s his own fault. Hackman was such a gifted performer and so adept at shouldering the burden of hard-hitting dramas that nobody would even think of him as the lead in a light and frothy comedy. As it turned out, his personal tastes were a lot nearer the knuckle, after revealing himself to be huge fan of the last TV show you’d expect.
“This is going to surprise some people, but I like watching old In Living Color episodes,” he told Glenn Whipp in 2001. “That’s my sense of humour. Sure, I like watching Cary Grant, and I’d like to think of myself as sophisticated and urbane, but I love watching Jim Carrey, too. A lot of it is so awful, so crass, but it turns me on.”
Did anyone have Gene Hackman being a Jim Carrey fan on their bingo card? Almost certainly not. Tommy Lee Jones, who joined the French Connection and Unforgiven star in the all-time pantheon of Hollywood’s most miserable-looking Oscar-winning bastards, famously said he could not sanction his Batman Forever co-star’s buffoonery, and it would be easy to believe that Hackman would feel the same way.
Instead, almost a decade after it had ended its five-season and 127-episode run, the veteran still couldn’t resist the lure of watching various members of the Wayans family strutting their stuff, with In Living Color also serving as a launchpad for Carrey and Jamie Foxx to set their sights on the silver screen, an arena both of them would eventually conquer.
The downside of knowing how much Hackman adored In Living Color and its biggest breakout star is how crushingly disappointing it is that they never made a movie together, which could have potentially been a mismatched pairing for the ages.
