Gene Hackman Quotes

Hollywood loves to typecast, and I guess they saw me as a violent guy.

I was trained to be an actor, not a star.

Nothing counts so much as family, the rest are just strangers. (as Nicholas Earpp in Wyatt Earp, 1994)

If you look at yourself as a star, you've already lost something in the portrayal of any human being.

Dysfunctional families have sired a number of pretty good actors.

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

Like a duck on the pond. On the surface everything looks calm, but beneath the water those little feet are churning a mile a minute.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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