Top 48 Gene Hackman Quotes: Famous Quotes & Sayings About Gene Hackman

#1. He went into the sitting room, put on a Duke Ellington record he had bought after seeing Gene Hackman sitting on the overnight bus in The Conversation to the sound of some fragile piano notes that were the loneliest Harry had ever heard.

Jo Nesbo

#2. I always wanted to be Gene Hackman and I always wanted to be, you know ... I wanted to be one of these guys. I always wanted to be Bob Duvall.

John C. McGinley

#3. I idolize Gene Hackman. He is not a natural star, not an incandescent personality like Jack Nicholson, but he makes luminous the problems of being an ordinary man in an extraordinary situation.

Brian Dennehy

#4. From 1980 to 1990, I shot more films than any other actor in the Screen Actors Guild, apart from Gene Hackman.

Steve Guttenberg

#5. Hey, I'm just trying to become the Michael Caine/Gene Hackman of my generation.

John C. Reilly

#6. I've always admired Gene Hackman, Jack Lemmon, Jimmy Stewart, Gregory Peck. I'm showing my age here.

Tim DeKay

#7. The fact that they let me in a movie with Gene Hackman has left me with no faith in show buisness.

Ray Romano

#8. Gene Hackman was a superstar in the '70s - with that face!

Joel Edgerton

#9. I got to work with Gene Hackman for six weeks, side by side, 12 hours a day.

Marguerite Moreau

#10. A favorite cast? Lisa Kudrow, Anthony Hopkins, Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, and my wife.

William H. Macy

#11. I wrote three mysteries and then a contemporary spy novel that was unbelievably derivative - completely based on 'The Conversation,' the movie with Gene Hackman. Amazingly, the character in the book looks exactly like ... Gene Hackman.

Alan Furst

#12. Gene Hackman is one of the great American actors of all time.

Lane Garrison

#13. I still assume that, any day, I'm going to be exposed as a fraud. That, like I once heard Gene Hackman say, the acting police are going to burst in and take away my card.

Chris Pine

#14. When I think of character actors, I think of Spencer Tracy; I think of Gene Hackman, Robert Duvall. When I was a young lad watching films, my eyes were on them - watching 'On the Waterfront,' my eyes are on Rod Steiger and Karl Malden, not on Brando.

Eddie Marsan

#15. I'm not an Adonis, that's for damn sure. I've never really thought of myself that way, and it doesn't matter to me. My favorite actors aren't Adonises. Dustin Hoffman is a flawed-looking man; he's amazing to me. Tom Hanks is flawed-looking; people love him. Same with Gene Hackman.

Shia Labeouf

#16. I went to L.A. to be Brad Pitt; now I just want to be Gene Hackman. I came to Nashville to be Kenny Chesney. I'd be very fortunate to be George Strait.

Christian Kane

#17. You go through stages in your career that you feel very good about yourself. Then you feel awful, like, 'Why didn't I choose something else?' But overall I'm pretty satisfied that I made the right choice when I decided to be an actor.

Gene Hackman

#18. I don't trust air I can't see.

Gene Hackman

#19. I lost touch with my son in terms of advice early on. Maybe it had to do with being gone so much, doing location films when he was at an age where he needed support and guidance.

Gene Hackman

#20. Seventy-five per cent of being successful as an actor is pure luck. The rest is just endurance.

Gene Hackman

#21. My wife and I take what we call our Friday comedy day off. We watch standup comics on TV. The raunchier the better. We love Eddie Izzard.

Gene Hackman

#22. The worst job I ever had was working nights in the Chrysler Building. I was part of a team of about five guys, and we polished the leather furniture.

Gene Hackman

#23. If I start to become a star, I'll lose contact with the normal guys I play best.

Gene Hackman

#24. Don't piss in my ear and tell me it's raining.

Gene Hackman

#25. My grandfather had been a newspaper reporter, as was my uncle. They were pretty good writers and so I thought maybe somewhere down the line I would do some writing.

Gene Hackman

#26. I went in the Marines when I was 16. I spent four and a half years in the Marines and then came right to New York to be an actor. And then seven years later, I got my first job.

Gene Hackman

#27. Things parents say to children are oftentimes not heard, but in some cases you pick up on things that your parent would like to see you have done.

Gene Hackman

#28. I don't see myself as a violent guy.

Gene Hackman

#29. I do not like assassins, or men of low character.

Gene Hackman

#30. I'm not a sentimental guy.

Gene Hackman

#31. My early days in Broadway were all comedies. I never did a straight play on Broadway.

Gene Hackman

#32. I have trouble with direction, because I have trouble with authority. I was not a good Marine.

Gene Hackman

#33. Five players on the floor functioning as a single unit: team, team, team-no one more important than the other.

Gene Hackman

#34. 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

#35. That's the great thing about plankton. It pretty much keeps to itself.

Gene Hackman

#36. Dysfunctional families have sired a number of pretty good actors.

Gene Hackman

#37. I'm disappointed that success hasn't been a Himalayan feeling.

Gene Hackman

#38. Once, I optioned a novel and tried to do a screenplay on it, which was great fun, but I was too respectful. I was only 100 pages into the novel and I had about 90 pages of movie script going. I realized I had a lot to learn.

Gene Hackman

#39. 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.

Gene Hackman

#40. The difference between a hero and a coward is one step sideways.

Gene Hackman

#41. Honesty isn't enough for me. That becomes very boring. If you can convince people what you're doing is real and it's also bigger than life - that's exciting.

Gene Hackman