Dysfunctional families have sired a number of pretty good actors.
– Gene Hackman
I do not like assassins, or men of low character.
– Gene Hackman
I wanted to act, but I'd always been convinced that actors had to be handsome. That came from the days when Errol Fyln was my idol. I'd come out of a theater and be startled when I looked in a mirror because I didn't look like Flynn. I felt like him.
– 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
If I start to become a star, I'll lose contact with the normal guys I play best.
– Gene Hackman
If you look at yourself as a star, you've already lost something in the portrayal of any human being.
– 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
The difference between a hero and a coward is one step sideways.
– 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
I write in the morning from about eight till noon, and sometimes again a bit in the afternoon. In the morning I start off by going over what I had done the previous day, which my wife has happily typed up for me.