“We called him ‘Vesuvius'”: Tony Scott made it his mission to stop Gene Hackman from blowing his top
The strange circumstances surrounding the death of Gene Hackman and his wife, Betsy Arakawa, in February 2025 almost distracted from the fact that the world had just lost one of its finest ever acting talents.
With a list of accolades a mile long and a stunning filmography even longer, the moustachioed maestro brought joy to millions of people across his 48-year career. As much as we all loved him onscreen, though, he could be a complete and utter nightmare off it.
Hackman famously had a temper and made no effort to hide when he was upset, just ask Wes Anderson. He had to deal with one of Hackman’s worst-ever moods on the set of The Royal Tenenbaums. The double Oscar winner had a torrid time making the film, especially whenever he had to share the set with Luke Wilson, but Anderson is just one of many directors who have horror stories about the icon.
One exemption from Hackman’s wrath seems to have been Tony Scott, the legendary filmmaker (and brother of Ridley) who directed the famous hothead twice; once in the submarine adventure Crimson Tide, and then again in the political thriller Enemy of the State. According to a quote from the Los Angeles Times, Scott was aware of Hackman’s short fuse, but also knew how to control it.
“We call him ‘Vesuvius’ because you aren’t quite sure when he is going to blow,” he recounted, “I saw very little of those ‘blows’ because I came prepared…. With Gene, there is a lot of anger inside him, but that anger translates great into [onscreen] personality. Gene is tough to work with because he does an enormous amount of homework. When he comes to the set, he knows exactly where his character is in that single moment in time. He knows where he wants to go and where his character is.”
When you’re as good as Gene Hackman, you constantly demand more of yourself, and while Scott described the star as a “perfectionist”, it’s more than that.
If you demand a high level of professionalism from yourself, then you also demand it from everyone else, because otherwise, it’s easy to feel like people aren’t on your level or they don’t care as much as you do, which can be incredibly frustrating. Everybody knows that kid at school who didn’t try or that person at work who drags everybody else down with them, so imagine that, but on a multi-million dollar movie set.
As it turns out, even with his volcanic reputation, Hackman was still a big attraction. One of the reasons Will Smith agreed to do Enemy of the State was that the French Connection star was attached. A quick scan of the rest of the cast reveals a litany of future big hitters, like Tom Sizemore, Regina King, Jack Black, Seth Green, and Gabriel Byrne. Casting director Victoria Thomas attributed this phenomenon to Hackman’s appeal; like attracts like, and great actors attract other great actors.
While life certainly would have been easier for everyone if Hackman could have calmed down a bit, his temper tantrums came from a very understandable place. If you could control them like Tony Scott did, you had a real winner on your hands.
