Every iconic role Gene Hackman turned down
Every actor of renown turns down plenty of roles during their careers, but it’s ironic that Gene Hackman rejected so many parts that would go on to become iconic in their own right when he was nowhere close to being the first choice for one of his own.
He was already an established and Academy Award-nominated actor by the dawn of the 1970s after landing his first pair of nods in the ‘Best Supporting Actor’ category for Bonnie & Clyde and I Never Sang for My Father, but it was The French Connection that gave him his first victory on his first time being shortlisted for ‘Best Actor’.
William Friedkin had no interest casting him as Popeye Doyle, but after realising he couldn’t afford Paul Newman and being turned down by Steve McQueen because he didn’t want to do another car movie so soon after Bullitt, Hackman was eventually drafted in once Lee Marvin, James Caan, and Robert Mitchum said no.
The shoe repeatedly found itself on the other foot in the years to come, though, with Hackman regularly being approached for a number of productions that would find major success in their own right. Not that it prevented him from earning his place as one of Hollywood’s greatest-ever performers, but it nonetheless presents some fascinating ‘what if?’ scenarios.
He was being courted by Steven Spielberg to play Roy Neary in Close Encounters of the Third Kind but didn’t view the sci-fi adventure as being worth his time, and Tommy Lee Jones ended up winning an Oscar for ‘Best Supporting Actor’ in The Fugitive after Hackman had been under serious consideration to hunt down Harrison Ford as Sam Gerard.
In another world he could have been Ellis Redding in The Shawshank Redemption, with director Frank Darabont admitting to Vanity Fair that “my brain went to some of my all-time favourite actors” including Hackman, but “for one reason or another they weren’t available.”
Mike Nichols fired him from The Graduate after he was deemed too young to be Mr. Robinson so that doesn’t technically count as a rejection, but Hackman did decline the opportunity to have his legs caved in by a sledgehammer-wielding Kathy Bates in Misery, not to mention his reluctance to play the Randall P. McMurphy part absolutely devoured by Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
He missed out on another ‘Best Picture’ winner after being hired as Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs before dropping out due to the violence in the screenplay, and the role earmarked for him in Apocalypse Now ended up going to Robert Duvall, with Hackman outlining the reasons why he decided not to take part.
“The Apocalypse Now situation was touchier because I have such regard for Francis Ford Coppola as a director,” he said. “But he wanted me to work for points, which I don’t think I should do.” Money talks loudest in Hollywood, and it cost him another role in a stone-cold classic. The same sentiment applied to Robert Redford’s ‘Best Picture’-winning Ordinary People, too, where he would have played Donald Sutherland’s part were it not for his inability to “come to an agreement regarding the – how can I phrase it? – compensation.”
Iconic roles turned down by Gene Hackman:
- Roy Neary (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Steven Spielberg, 1977)
- Sam Gerard (The Fugitive, Andrew Davis, 1993)
- Ellis Redding (The Shawshank Redemption, Frank Darabont, 1994)
- Paul Sheldon (Misery, Rob Reiner, 1990)
- Jack Crawford (The Silence of the Lambs, Jonathan Demme, 1991)
- Randall P. McMurphy (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Miloš Forman, 1974)
- Lieutenant Colonel William Kilgore (Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
- Calvin Jarrett (Ordinary People, Robert Redford, 1980)
