The exact moment Gene Hackman was convinced he’d committed career suicide: “It scared me”
There’s an element of risk to any acting career, with a single role more than capable of turning somebody into an overnight star or killing their momentum instantly. For Gene Hackman, there was a precise moment when he thought his professional life had reached the point of no return.
He’d worked hard to gain a foothold in a cutthroat industry, and he was one of the biggest beneficiaries of the ‘New Hollywood’ era from an on-camera perspective. He didn’t look or sound like a conventional leading man, at least by the parameters of the preceding ‘Golden Age’, but he seized every opportunity that came his way to crack the A-list.
Hackman’s first two Academy Award nominations for Bonnie & Clyde and I Never Sang for My Father put him on the map as one of the industry’s most gifted talents before a ‘Best Actor’ win for William Friedkin’s classic crime thriller The French Connection propelled him to even greater heights, and he was quick to capitalise on his newfound stardom and leverage.
The Poseidon Adventure, The Conversation, Young Frankenstein, and A Bridge Too Far allowed Hackman to showcase the breadth of his talents across multiple genres, but he wasn’t above taking the money on occasion. Marlon Brando may have stolen the headlines for his ridiculous pay packet, but Richard Donner’s Superman also had to shell out to secure its villainous Lex Luthor.
Leading man Christopher Reeve was only paid $250,000 for squeezing himself into the title character’s costume, whereas Hackman pocketed a cool $2million for hamming it up as the antagonist. It was a hefty payday, but as he admitted to The New York Times, his first day on set convinced him that he’d signed a death warrant for his career.
“It scared me when I accepted the role,” Hackman confessed, even if a multi-million dollar salary would have been a welcome comfort blanket. “I walked on the set in London on the first day of filming, and there was Chris Reeve in this skintight blue suit and red cape. I looked at him and thought I had really done the ultimate act and committed suicide.”
As it turned out, Hackman had absolutely nothing to worry about. Donner’s Superman was a cultural juggernaut that cleaned up at the box office to become the second highest-grossing release of 1978 behind only Grease and earned an Academy Award for its visual effects. He might have been guilty of nibbling on the scenery, but playing the superhero’s arch-nemesis didn’t exactly have a detrimental effect on his career.
He even reprised the role in the second and fourth entries in the series, all while continuing to diversify his acting portfolio away from comic book histrionics. Hackman was convinced that Superman would mark the beginning of the end, but instead, it became one of the most popular roles of his career.
