Bill Murray has remembered the late Gene Hackman as being a great but “difficult” actor who was “really rough” on The Royal Tenenbaums director Wes Anderson.
Hackman — who was found dead at 95 in his Santa Fe home Wednesday night along with his wife and their pet dog — led Anderson’s 2001 comedy-drama as the Tenenbaum family patriarch. Murray, meanwhile, played neurologist Raleigh St. Clair.
“He was a tough nut, Gene Hackman. But he was really good,” Murray, 74, recalled of the legendary actor in an interview with the Associated Press.
“And he was really difficult, we can say it now, but he was a tough guy. Older, great actors do not give young directors much of a chance. They’re really rough on them, and Gene was really rough on Wes,” the Groundhog Day star said.
Hackman was 71 at the time of the film’s release while Anderson was just 32.
“I used to kind of step in there and just try to defend my friend,” Murray added.
He further recounted once witnessing Hackman do 25 takes “perfectly” while “the other actor would blow it.”
“And I’d go like, ‘Oh, God.’ I was watching it going, ‘No wonder this guy wants to throttle people,’” Murray laughed. “And then he sort of gave an ordinary performance and the other actor got it right and I thought Gene was going to throw the actor off the ledge of the building. So he was a great one; he was a great actor.”
During an appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show, Murray elaborated on his comments, saying that he sympathized “with Gene because to him, Wes Anderson was just a punk kid and Gene’s made some of the greatest American movies.”
“So he was a little irritable,” the Ghostbusters actor said in a preview for next Wednesday’s (March 5) episode. “But he had to work with children, dogs, Kumar [Pallana, who played valet Pagoda], who was like an absolute mystery to all of us anyway. They put him in very challenging positions to work, and so he just felt a lot of responsibility and kept thinking, ‘What am I doing here with these people?’ But the performance he gives is brilliant. And I watched him, and I suffered with him because I saw what he was going through.”
Hackman went on to win a Golden Globe for his performance in The Royal Tenenbaums.
The two-time Oscar-winning actor’s death, along with that of his wife, classical pianist Betsy Arakawa, are currently under investigation. The couple of 34 years had been dead “quite a while,” according to authorities, who have called their deaths “suspicious.”
