Born As: Eugene Alden Hackman Nationality: US - United States of America Date of Birth: January 30, 1930 Place of Birth: San Bernadino, California, USA
Turned down the lead role of Roy Neary in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) because he was in a troubled marriage and could not spend 16 weeks outside of Los Angeles on location shooting.
Even though he is not a smoker, he played the role of a chain-smoker man in the movie Heartbreakers (2001). He was using a special kind of cigarettes that only gives heavy smoke without actually smoking.
As a young man, Hackman attended a showing of the movie A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and was impressed by the performance of Marlon Brando due to his naturalism and the fact that he didn't look like what a movie star typically looked like in the 1950s. After exiting the theater, he told his father that he wanted to be an actor.
Lives in New Mexico
Enjoys painting and writing fiction.
Along with Margot Kidder, Hackman was appalled at the way Alexander Salkind and Ilya Salkind, the producers of the first three Superman films and 1984's Supergirl (1984) film, had treated director Richard Donner, who had directed the first Superman (1978) and most of the second Superman film back-to-back before he was fired by the Salkinds over creative differences. Hackman, who said he only did the first two movies because of Richard Donner's persuasion, was so angry with the Salkinds that vehemently refused to reprise the role of Lex Luthor in Superman III (1983), while Margot Kidder, who played Lois Lane, only appeared in a cameo role. Hackman was later persuaded to reprise the Luthor role in Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987).
After he played Little Bill in Unforgiven (1992), Hackman vowed not to appear in any more violent films. After he had been in violent films dating back to Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and The French Connection (1971) (in a role refused by Peter Boyle for the same reasons), he said he was fed up with them.
Reportedly turned down one of the lead roles in Network (1976).
Reportedly turned down the role of Randall Patrick McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975).
Says watching his own films make him terribly nervous.
