Sometimes, things look good on paper: a highly respected Oscar-winning actor starring with highly popular actors under a director of countless humor-filled classics. But, as often happens, things don’t always go to plan. ForGene Hackman’slast ever film,Welcome to Mooseport,things went so bad that co-starMaura Tierney jokedit was, “The film that forced Gene Hackman into retirement.“Welcome to Mooseportwas railed against upon its 2004 release and currently holds a 13% on Rotten Tomatoes. It made less than half its $30 million budget. While several factors were at play in its disastrous reception, the real shame is Hackman’s long and illustrious five-decade-spanning career didn’t end on a high note.
How the Great Gene Hackman Wound Up in Mooseport
Welcome to Mooseport
Hackman retired from acting onscreen in 2004 after a 40-year-long acting career (and then proceeded to write historical fiction novels up until 2013). But back when he acted, he brought subtlety and authenticity to his many varied roles. A move to New York in the 1960s saw him tread the boards and act in a variety of smaller films and shows, leading to his breakthrough performance and an Oscar nomination for 1967’sBonnie and Clyde,playing Clyde’s brother Buck Barrows. In 1971, stardom was firmly established when Hackman took the Oscar home for his portrayal of New York’s flawed detective,Jimmy “Popeye” Doyle, inThe French Connection.
It wasn’t always serious stuff. Hackman turned his hand to comedy with a small but perfectly formed cameo in Mel Brooks' 1974’sYoung Frankenstein. He played the blind man in a farcical four-minute scene with Peter Boyle as Frankenstein’s Monster, withWhat Culturereporting, “Hackman’s last line, “I was gonna make espresso!” was completely ad-libbed and when the screen fades to black, that’s due to the fact the crew couldn’t stop laughing.”
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Manipulative yet charming, Hackman played Royal Tenenbaum as part of the all-star cast in Wes Anderson’sThe Royal Tenenbaumsin 2001, which, in retrospect, would’ve been the perfect final film for the actor.Behind Enemy Linescame next in the same year, followed by the previously filmedRunaway Jury. Finally, there wasHackman’s last-ever outingon screen…Welcome to Mooseport.
A Battle of Egos in Mooseport
The plot ofWelcome to Mooseportironically mirrors the behind-the-scenes context with Hackman. After divorcing his wife, Charlotte Cole (Christine Baranski), beloved former President Monroe “Eagle” Cole relocates to Mooseport, Maine. It’s a sweet little town and the location of his vacation home, where he can write his memoirs in peace (almost a meta-commentary on Hackman’s life at the time). Cole plans to spend the rest of his time playing rounds of golf. However, when the local mayor dies, no one steps up to fill the vacancy. Thinking it will make him look more favorable in his divorce case, Cole rises to meet the challenge.
Things get a little tricky when he learns Harold ‘Handy’ Harrison (Ray Romano), a local hardware store owner, has reluctantly agreed to be in the running for mayor. Initially, Handy agrees to withdraw at Cole’s request, but when Cole asks out Sally Mannis (Tierney, 30 years younger than Hackman) and doesn’t realize she’s Handy’s girlfriend, a rivalry ignites and a race to the top between the two men is on. Nerves get the better of Cole as he sees Handy as a respected and ethical man in Mooseport. So Cole employs the best campaign team that money can buy, spending heaps of cash.
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Behind the scenes, the battle of egos occurred between Hackman and the director.Welcome to Mooseportwas unlike the successful romantic comedies that director Donald Petrie had worked on before. He had a glowing resume, directingMystic Pizza,Grumpy Old Men,Miss Congeniality,How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days,and more. Hackman possibly looked at this record and thought he was onto an easy win, but the complexities of human personalities and chemistry between two people came into play.
Hackman was not a fan of Petrie’s directorial style. But Tierney stated that Hackman didn’t like being bossed around by any director, stating, “I think that’s his schtick. I mean, he did, I believe, tell the director at some point to, uh… [Starts to laugh.] “Will you just shut the f%&k up and go over there and say ‘action’ or whatever it is you do?”
“Gene Wasn’t the Easiest to Work With”
By the time Hackman filmedWelcome to Mooseport, he had developed a slightly sour reputation in the film industry as an old-school actor, very different from the increasingly sanitized Hollywood productions that would lead to intimacy coordinators and on-set HR. Many actors and directors have reminisced about Hackman’s outbursts throughout the years. Burt Reynolds, in his memoirBut Enough About Me(which really should’ve been calledBurt Enough About Me), wrote of their 1975 film,Lucky Lady:
“Gene Hackman is a good actor. He’s tough, and Liza [Minnelli] is so boop oopy doop, it didn’t sit well with him. Every once in a while he’d go, ‘Liza, shut the f*ck up!’ We’d all have to walk off the set until he cooled off. Gene’s not a bad guy, but he allowed Liza to distract him. Gene wasn’t the easiest to work with either. You’d do the rehearsal one way, and when you got to the take, he’d say, ‘You’re not gonna do it that way are you?'”
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In his oral history ofHoosiersforVulture, director David Anspaugh recalled, “Before shooting started, I was thinking to myself, ‘Working with Gene is going to be a wonderful experience.’ It wasn’t […] Gene called me out in front of the whole cast and crew.” Anspaugh continued:
I’m sort of paraphrasing but basically he said, “You’ve got no taste, your head’s completely up your ass, and you’re a phony.” I thought he was joking at first. Then I realized he wasn’t. The crew went dead quiet.
“The shoot was 39 days,” added Anspaugh. “Probably 35 of them were like that first one.” The most revealing part of this oral history comes when Anspaugh says, “Gene, toward the end of the movie, after yelling at me for an hour, he said, ‘I know I behave like a child sometimes. I want to make a good movie, but I just don’t feel comfortable making movies where I feel comfortable.'” Like many old-school actors, Hackman’s art was routed through assholery. Director Wes Anderson provided direct evidence of this when discussingThe Royal TenenbaumswithThe Talks:
One of the most challenging and best actors I worked with, many years ago, was Gene Hackman. He was not a relaxed, comfortable person in my company.
Why ‘Welcome to Mooseport?’
In all honesty,Welcome to Mooseport, while banal, disjointed, and forgettable, was harmless and didn’t damage anyone’s career, especially Romano’s, but it was enough to spur Hackman to leave the playing field.Eric D. Snidersummed it up well in probably the most positive way anyone could: “I certainly didn’t mind watching it. It’s the kind of movie that smiles blandly at you because it can’t think of anything smart to say, and so you smile back, content but not intrigued.”
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So why wasWelcome to Mooseportthe last straw? Perhaps Hackman simply grew tired of feeling uncomfortable, which was the only way he knew how to give a great performance. BeforeMooseport, Hackman had one of his most contentious productions with the aforementionedThe Royal Tenenbaums.He frequently berated Wes Anderson, calling him a “c*nt” and yelling so much that Bill Murray came to set on his off-days to protect Anderson.
The method, while horrifying, paid off when Hackman won the Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy. IfWelcome to Mooseportwas more highly regarded, would he have kept working? If his experiences on these productions were more comfortable, would he have made more films? We’ll never know. But after the body of work he produced, perhaps Hackman earned the right to retire, write and maybe, like Cole, play a spot of golf.
