We at Flicks are delighted to see the publication of Clarisse Loughrey’s book on one of our top filmmaking faves: Wes Anderson A Retrospective.
Pic courtesy of Gemini Books
As the publisher outlines:
Wes Anderson is a true icon of contemporary cinema. His films are consistent cult favourites, starring a cast of top actors and have made indie films popular again. With his inimitable and idiosyncratic style, Anderson’s cinematic universe includes The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling Limited, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom and Isle of Dogs.
Wes Anderson: A Retrospective considers his entire oeuvre and reveals behind-the-scenes anecdotes, colour codes and where the visual Easter eggs are hidden.
Pic courtesy of Gemini Books
Pic courtesy of Gemini Books
Wes Anderson A Retrospective by Clarisse Loughrey is published by Gemini Books (December 2025). Available at your local bookshop, Amazon or online here. In the following extract, Loughrey looks back at the combustible collaboration at the heart of The Royal Tenenbaums:
Wes Anderson had written Royal Tenenbaum with Gene Hackman in mind. They first met around two years before production commenced. The interaction was pleasant, but Hackman warned that he didn’t like roles to be written for him, or to be presented with some stranger’s idea of who he was. Anderson did it anyway. Hackman passed on the movie, twice.
So, the director sent him Eric’s sketch of the cast with him at the centre—which has since, regrettably, gone missing—and several dozen letters. “I was essentially stalking him,” he confessed, “even though for a while I had no personal contact.”
Eventually, Hackman relented. His agent was reading yet another letter over the phone when he replied, “I guess maybe I should do it.” Like the rest of the cast, he’d have to be paid scale, the lowest amount an actor can legally accept, so that the production could actually afford its stars. But there was an echo of Royal Tenenbaum in his own life. One day, when Hackman was 13, his father climbed in his car, drove past his son in the street and waved, but refused to stop. He never returned.
Hackman left home at the age of 16, lying about his age so he could enlist in the United States Marine Corps. He served four and a half years as a field-radio operator, before ending up at the Pasadena Playhouse College of Theatre Arts, where the students voted him, alongside his classmate Dustin Hoffman, as Least Likely to Succeed.
The French Connection
Unforgiven
It would take him until his late thirties to officially break into the industry, when he was Oscar-nominated for his role in Bonnie and Clyde (1967). He would then win twice, for The French Connection (1972) and Unforgiven (1992), in a body of work that was versatile but steadfastly honest, with roles that often commanded fear, respect or a combination of both.
It’s that gravitas, slightly upturned, that Hackman brings to the part of Royal. The man thinks he’s The French Connection’s Detective Popeye Doyle, who can barge like a steam train into people’s lives, and live loud, large and selfishly.
And, yet, he can’t stand to be rejected by Etheline or by his children. He’s unmoored by his own vulnerabilities, by all that he realizes about his sad, broken-up family in the wake of Richie’s suicide attempt. He asks Margot, attempting a truce over a butterscotch sundae, “Can’t somebody be a shit their whole life and try to repair the damage?”
It wasn’t an easy shoot. Hackman was a consummate professional, and he relished the technical challenges presented by Anderson’s tightly controlled camera set-ups, but didn’t take well to direction. On one occasion, after several takes, Anderson pointed out that he was meant to cry during a scene. Hackman wanted to know where it was stated in the script. The director looked over his copy, only to discover that he’d crossed out everything bar his own dialogue. “The only valid way that I can act is from the moment, from what’s happening at that particular time,” the actor would explain. Anything else felt inauthentic.
Anderson admitted that, while he relished the opportunity to work with such a legendary performer, Hackman could be “very scary”. Stiller had attempted to break the ice by telling him how much he’d loved The Poseidon Adventure (1972). “It was a money job,” the actor replied and walked away.
On the day of Royal’s scene with Etheline, in which he first announces his illness, Hackman seemed especially disgruntled. During rehearsal, Huston slapped him on the lapel of his jacket, only to aim for the face once the cameras rolled. “I saw the imprint of my hand on his cheek,” she said. “And I thought he was gonna kill me.” It was the take used in the final movie.
Paltrow remembered the experience far more fondly. “He was kind of a bear of a guy,” she said. “But I also felt something very sweet and sad in him there, and I liked him a lot. And I think he’s one of the greatest actors who ever lived. You’re Gene Hackman, you can be in a fucking bad mood if you want.” Anderson had received the worst of it. At one point, the actor allegedly called him a “cunt” and demanded he pull up his pants and act like a man.
Hackman also confessed to him, roughly two-thirds of the way into the shoot, that “I think this is gonna be it.” He starred in only two further films and then quit to become a novelist. His doctor had advised him that, for the sake of his own heart, he should avoid any unnecessary stress.
Yet, Hackman received his best notices in years for The Royal Tenenbaums, alongside a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy. The otherwise critical A. O. Scott declared in The New York Times that he was “the only one who bursts off the page into three dimensions”.
Wes Anderson A Retrospective by Clarisse Loughrey is published by Gemini Books (December 2025). Available at your local bookshop, Amazon or online here.
