Gene Hackman: The only actor Clint Eastwood called “perfect”
As a director, Clint Eastwood is known for his streamlined approach. He avoids lengthy, philosophical discussions about a character’s backstory and refrains from acting out scenes to demonstrate what he wants. Instead, Eastwood keeps things simple, rarely rehearsing and often shooting only one or two takes. As a general rule, he prefers to work quickly and speak sparingly.
It’s the kind of style you’d expect from a man who spent the first part of his career-defining the art of the cinematic squint. Eastwood’s brand of taciturn masculinity has served him well over his seven-decade career, from his iconic performance as ‘The Man with No Name’ in Sergio Leone’s Dollars Trilogy to directing Oscar-winning movies with some of the greatest actors of all time.
Throughout his career, Eastwood has worked with some of the best, both as an actor and as a director. He directed and starred opposite Meryl Streep in The Bridges of Madison County in 1995, helped Morgan Freeman win an Oscar for his performance in Million Dollar Baby in 2005, and earned Judi Dench’s eternal frustration for his directorial style on the set of J Edgar in 2011. Out of everyone, however, one actor stood head and shoulders above the rest for his ability to completely inhabit his character without the need for hours of rehearsing.
Speaking to author Mike Goodridge, Eastwood said that his style of directing takes into account that the actors will have already prepared for their performances. “Most actors have a pretty good idea coming to it, because it’s what attracted them to the role,” he explained. In fact, some of them are so prepared or simply so intuitive as a performer that they walk onto set with an instinctive understanding of their character.
“A great example of that would be Gene Hackman in Unforgiven,” the director said. “He had the character so perfect right out of the box on every shot, every sequence, and he really didn’t have to do anything different—he was amazing.”
Hackman won an Oscar for his performance as the ruthless sheriff Little Bill Daggett in Eastwood’s western. The director played a retired gunslinger who returns for one last job when a group of prostitutes hire him to exact revenge on a man who attacked one of them. Bill runs the small Wyoming town with an iron fist, doling out lenient punishments to allies and brutal ones to his enemies. He and Eastwood’s character are in direct opposition, even though they both ascribe to a flexible view of the law, and they’re on a collision course from the start.
As Bill, Hackman is casually cruel, swaggering and gloating over his victims with a cool confidence that is utterly chilling. He’s the perfect antagonist for Eastwood, whose usual expressionless silence is menacing in its own right. Of the two of them, however, Hackman was the one who deserved the Oscar. In a cast full of heavy-hitters, he showed them who the boss was both as a character and as a performer.
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