Interview with Gene Hackman
Roger Ebert - November 28, 1971

All in all, it was an exciting week for "The French Connection."

It made the top of Variety's box office chart. Down on the New York docks, vice cops
broke up an attempt to smuggle in millions of dollars of heroin from France - and the
smack was hidden in a car, just like in the movie. Then, toward the end of the week,
detective Eddie Egan (whose real-life adventure is told in "The French Connection")
was busted on real-life charges of withholding small quantities of drugs in 22
separate cases.

Only one thing was lacking to make it a perfect week: President Nixon didn't see the
movie three times and invade France.

Gene Hackman, who portrays Egan in the movie as Jimmy Doyle, thinks Eddie
got a lousy deal.

"What kind of a thing is that, busting the guy ten days before he's up for retirement?"
Hackman was asking here the other day. "I know these guys and that retirement pay
means a lot to them, it's no laughing matter. Besides, I'm positively sure, myself, that
it was a bum rap. But I can't tell you why for publication."

"Why not?" I asked. "It might do Egan some good."

"Yeah," said Hackman, after a moment's thought. "Why the hell not? The key words
in the indictment are 'small quantities.' They're talking about nickel bags. Egan isn't that
kind of a guy. I just know he's not. For one thing, guys like that have too many
opportunities for big scores, if that's what they're after. They'd never take a chance
on a five buck bag of heroin.

"I'll tell you what I think happened. I went along on some raids with these guys, Egan
and his partner. For all anyone knew, I was a cop. I saw how they operated. They weren't
after the street users, the little guys. They want the suppliers. Their dream is to bust an
entire shipment while it's coming into the country - which is what the movie is about.

"Anyway, they'd be in hostile territory. A street corner saloon or someplace. And they'd
bust a guy and shove the stuff into their pockets, too busy to think about it. They're worried
about knives and guns, they're not worried about a glassine envelope of heroin. That's not
gonna stab them in the back. So they'd shove the stuff in their pockets while they had the
guy up against the wall, and then if they decided not to bust him, they couldn't take the
stuff and give it back.

"I remember once somebody shoved some stuff at me and said, 'Here, hold this.' I got
back to my hotel and found the stuff still in my coat pocket, and I just about died. These
guys, they're after the main thing. Sometimes they're sloppy about details. So they forget
a bag. They're doing a job."

Hackman paused while an order of Steak Diane closed in on his left. This was in the Pump
Room, where he was taking his father to dinner. The next day the two of them were going
on down to Danville, where Gene was born, for a family reunion. There was even talk that
another Danville native, Dick Van Dyke, would be there. "He and his wife stood up for
Gene's brother when he got married," Gene's father said.

There is a lot of talk that Hackman will get an Academy Award nomination as best actor for
"The French Connection." He has already been nominated twice as best supporting actor:
In 1968 for "Bonnie and Clyde," where he played Clyde's brother, and again this year for his
performance as the tormented son in "I Never Sang for My Father."

How does he feel about the awards?

"Well, if anything keeps 'The French Connection' back from a series of nominations, there
isn't any justice," he said. "I'm not talking just about myself. I'd like to see Billy Friedkin
get some recognition as the year's best director. Nobody else could have made this picture.
I learned a lot about movies just knowing what Billy left out in the editing stage. He left out
all kinds of character development scenes, in order to get on with the action. Yet there are
enough scenes left to make the characters work. Another director might have left everything
in and ruined the pace of the picture."

Hackman has played a range of very different roles since he first gained wide attention in
"Bonnie and Clyde." Apart from his many performances on and off Broadway, he has been
a driven, Vince Lombardi-type ski coach in "The Downhill Racers," a hardnosed con in "The
Riot," and a narcotics detective, again, in "Cisco Pike," which hasn't yet been released.

It's interesting to compare the differences in his two portrayals of detectives. In "The French
Connection," Doyle is hard as nails, sadistic, racist, driven by a tremendous ego to win
against all odds. The cop in "Cisco Pike," on the other hand, tries to project a facade of
toughness, but he's weak and
scared to death inside. Since the exterior of both characters are similar, Hackman's ability
to make them so different is a measure of his gift for sinking into characters.

Although a lot of moviegoers remember his performance in "I Never Sang for My Father"
with respect and affection, it isn't one of Hackman's favorites. "I was uncomfortable doing
the part. In terms of drama, the movie was unrelenting. Every scene was a culmination scene,
and we were always taking psychological last stands. Usually an actor can find some way to
play against a character, to give him some additional dimension. But it was super difficult to
find an area in this guy that was different. He was always whining. I kept working at it to find
ways to release that, but I never could."

The character of Doyle in "The French Connection" was especially hard.

"I'm not that kind of guy. He was a physical man. No second thoughts. No introspection. We
had to go back and re-shoot the first two days of scenes because I hadn't gotten into the
character enough. I wasn't physical enough."

Was the character in "I Never Sang for My Father" closer to what comes naturally?

"No, I wouldn't say so," he said. "It wasn't autobiographical. I had to start from scratch
there, too. I mean it's always hard to really talk with your parents, but I wouldn't say the
movie really reflected my own experience."

He paused. "Dad," he said, "did you ever see that picture?"

"Which one?" asked his father.

"'I Never Sang for My Father.'"

"No, I didn't see that one."

"I thought you had."

"No," his father said, "I didn't very much want to see it. I heard from some other people
what it was about, and I didn't think of myself as that kind of a father, so I didn't go."

"See?" Hackman said.
 



GO BACK TO THE ARTICLES MAIN PAGE