An Irish director and producer who shot his first film with the late Gene Hackman has described the Hollywood actor as “relentlessly professional”.
Police investigations are ongoing into the deaths of the two-time Oscar-winning actor (95) and his wife, Betsy Arakawa (65), along with their dog, at their home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on Wednesday.
John Moore worked with Hackman in the early noughties and said his abiding memories of the actor were of “fun and laughter”.
“I worked with him on Behind Enemy Lines [2001], which was my first film, and, like everyone else, I was a huge fan of his,” said Moore, who originally hails from Dundalk, Co Louth.
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“It was late in the day when I found out he was going to be in the production so I didn’t know what was going to happen. I mean, how do you engage with Gene Hackman?
“I couldn’t believe it. I was thrilled.”
Hackman, who also starred in films such as The French Connection and Superman, was known for his fear of flying but was starring in a film about a pilot who gets shot down in Behind Enemy Lines.
“He was afraid of flying so he and his wife, Betsy, got the QE2 from Florida to Spain and drove to Slovakia, where we were filming. He arrived two days early and never told anyone – you’d never get away with that now,” he laughed.
[ Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa ‘suffered no external trauma’Opens in new window ]
At that stage, Moore and the crew were filming scenes with explosions and outdoor action.
“I looked across the set and saw this tall man in a puffer jacket looking a little lost and thought, ‘Is that Gene?’
“I walked over to him and put my hand out to say hello and everything went fine after that. Any initial nerves I had just faded away pretty fast.”
Moore said the actor had a reputation of being difficult to work with but he never experienced that side of him.
“He was the funniest guy who told the funniest, and sometimes rudest, jokes. My abiding memory of him is just laughter and how fun he was.
“Maybe it was the Irish side of me but I got along famously with him, as did all the other cast and crew.”
The pair never worked together again after Behind Enemy Lines as the actor retired a few years later.
“His death has left a shadow across Hollywood. He was Gene Hackman. Every actor, at some point in their career, would have compared themselves to Gene Hackman.
“He was up there with the greats of Jimmy Cagney and Orson Wells. If I had to sum up Gene in two words, I would say he was relentlessly professional. It is a complete honour to say that I worked with him.”
Moore, who has also worked on the likes of The Omen, Flight of the Phoenix and A Good Day to Die Hard, is currently in Dublin working on his next project, which he remains tight-lipped about for now.
