Wes Anderson Gives Honest 3-Word Description of Gene Hackman

Without a doubt, one of the greatest films of Gene Hackman's career was the 2001 Wes Anderson masterpiece The Royal Tenenbaums. But, somewhat infamously, the veteran actor didn't exactly mesh with the much younger Anderson, and, because Anderson paid all the actors a flat-rate, Hackman, was, by many accounts, frustrated.

"We had friction," Anderson said bluntly in an interview with The Times, just ahead of the debut of his new film, The Phoenician Scheme, at the Cannes Film Festival. "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," Anderson added.

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When Anderson was making The Royal Tenenbaums, he would have only been in his early 30s. At the time, even though Bottle Rocket and Rushmore had been well received, Anderson was still an indie director with a relatively small following. Today, we tend to think of Anderson as one of the great modern-day auteurs. But that reputation partly comes from the success of Tenenbaums, a movie that transformed the global perception of Anderson from a twee curiosity into a cinematic powerhouse.

Following Hackman's death earlier this year, Tenenbaums co-star Bill Murray also recalled that Anderson and Hackman had a rough relationship on the set of the movie, saying that "He was really difficult, we can say it now, but he was a tough guy."

As Anderson pointed out in the new interview, Hackman did eventually tell him that he'd liked The Royal Tenenbaums. "He liked [the movie]. But he told me he didn’t understand it when we were shooting," Anderson said.

Wes Anderson's new film, The Phoenician Scheme, stars Benicio del Toro, Mia Threapleton, Michael Cera, Riz Ahmed, Tom Hanks, Bryan Cranston, Mathieu Amalric, Richard Ayoade, Jeffrey Wright, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rupert Friend, and Hope Davis. After its debut at Cannes, it will hit theaters on May 30.

The Royal Tenenbaums streams on Hulu.

Related: 'The Phoenician Scheme' Trailer Is the Most Wes Anderson Thing Ever