Dysfunctional families have sired a number of pretty good actors. (Gene Hackman)
I got fired, I think, because I just didn't fulfill the director's and the writer's idea of what the part should've been. In rehearsals, I do a lot of searching around, I try not to perform and I really feel confident in what I'm doing. I mean, you can go first day and perform and probably won't go further than that. But the way that we were all trained in the Fifties and Sixties, you needed to keep searching and so, I was doing that, and they decided that I was just taking too much time. (Gene Hackman)
If you look at yourself as a star, you've already lost something in the portrayal of any human being. (Gene Hackman)
Asked what changed in the tide to allow them to be stars, Hoffman laughs and replies, A decline in the culture. ... Everyone has a chance if you're lucky enough to find the property and we all three individually were very fortunate. (Gene Hackman)
I do not like assassins, or men of low character. (Gene Hackman)
Did the two have any sense back then that they would be such massively successful and accomplished actors I would've been happy with an off, off Broadway job and that's what happened, ... We both started in something like that. (Gene Hackman)
You have a powerful weapon working for you. For you there is no tomorrow and that makes you all very dangerous people (Gene Hackman)
If I start to become a star, I'll lose contact with the normal guys I play best. (Gene Hackman)
I was trained to be an actor, not a star. I was trained to play roles, not to deal with fame and agents and lawyers and the press. (Gene Hackman)
The difference between a hero and a coward is one step sideways. (Gene Hackman)
It really costs me a lot emotionally to watch myself on screen. I think of myself, and feel like I'm quite young, and then I look at this old man with the baggy chins and the tired eyes and the receding hairline and all that. (Gene Hackman)