The 78-year-old San Bernadino, CA native may have walked away from acting, but that in no way means that he has given up the art of storytelling.
By FilmStew Staff, FilmStew.com
It all started back in the 1990's, when Gene Hackman and his wife signed up for scuba diving lessons in New Mexico. Their teacher, Daniel Lenihan, had a fondness for the same literary authors as those favored by Hackman, and so the two men began writing together in 1994.
The results, so far, have been a trio of historical novels: 1999's Wake of the Perdido Star, 2004's Justice for None and this summer's Escape from Andersonville: A Novel of the Civil War. What's most fascinating is that in putting together their latest work, Hackman and Lenihan approached it once again essentially as if they had been cast together in a movie, with the former writing from the perspective of Union Army Captain Nathan Parker and Lenihan from the POV of the other main protagonist, ex-Confederate soldier Marcel Lafarge. The new novel represents the sum of those carefully researched efforts.
"I start by asking myself questions like I do when I'm approaching a role as an actor," Hackman tells Durham, North Carolina's Independent Weekly. "What does the character want? Where has the character been? Where is the character going? Simple things like that, and then from there one thing kind of leads to another."
"I like a good story," adds the artist formerly known as the star of 2004's Welcome to Mooseport. "Being an actor, I always look for story. It's like the lifeblood for me."
Hackman tells the paper that as with his former occupation, he tries not to read reviews of his books. Because, he warns, if you believe the good ones, then you must also give credence to the bad ones.
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