PREVIEW

Wes Anderson has admitted he never spoke to Gene Hackman again after working on The Royal Tenenbaums together almost 25 years ago. Hackman died this year, aged 95, with Anderson's offbeat tale, in which he played the titular patriarch of a family of former child prodigies, one of the last he made before retiring from acting. However, unlike many of the stars of the director's films, like Bill Murray or Jason Schwartzman, they never struck up a lasting friendship. The duo apparently got off on the wrong foot due to The Grand Budapest Hotel filmmaker's tradition of paying all his actors an identical flat fee. ”Gene was very annoyed about the money. He was furious. Also, he didn't want to do the film anyway. I talked him into it - I just didn't go away. And everybody else said yes to the salary, so Gene just went with it - and that just became our way.” The director admits that other than a brief word after the film's release, he and Hackman simply never spoke again. ”In fact he left without saying goodbye," the 56-year-old added. "He was grumpy - we had friction. He didn't enjoy it. I was probably too young and it was annoying to him.” However, the five-time Oscar-winner said that the cantankerous star "liked" the finished film and that he wishes he'd been more accomodating on set. ”He told me he didn't understand it when we were shooting. I wish I'd shown him ten minutes, early on. Then, maybe, he would have said, 'OK, I get it.’"
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