Clint Eastwood Talked Gene Hackman Into Breaking a Promise — and It Won Him an Oscar

Gene Hackman almost turned down one of the best roles of his career. When Clint Eastwood came to him with an offer to play the tough and cruel sheriff Bill Daggett in Unforgiven, Hackman didn’t jump at the chance.

He was worried. He had promised his family that he wouldn’t keep doing violent movies, and this one looked like it would break that promise.

Hackman’s career had already been filled with thrillers and dramas full of shootings and violence. Films like The French Connection, Uncommon Valor, Target, No Way Out, Mississippi Burning, and The Package all leaned on action and bloodshed.

His family wasn’t too happy about that path. Screenwriter David Webb Peoples said, “Gene’s daughters didn’t like all the violent movies he was doing,” and at that point in his life, family was more important to him than work.

So when Eastwood came calling with Unforgiven, Hackman hesitated. He admitted, “I swore I would never be involved in a picture with this much violence in it.” At first, he thought the role might be more of the same.

But Eastwood explained that the movie wasn’t about celebrating violence. It was the opposite. The film showed violence as ugly, damaging, and impossible to escape without consequences.

William Munny, played by Eastwood himself, was a man trying to leave killing behind. Sheriff Daggett, by contrast, used violence to control people and spread fear. That difference gave the story weight.

Hackman thought it over and started to see the deeper point. He later said, “The more I read it, the more I came to understand the purpose of the film, the more fascinated I became.” He agreed to take the part, and it became one of his greatest performances.

Unforgiven came out in 1992. It was a revisionist Western directed and produced by Eastwood, with a script by David Webb Peoples. Alongside Hackman and Eastwood, the film also starred Morgan Freeman and Richard Harris.

It told the story of Munny, an old outlaw who returns to his violent past for one last job. The movie was made for about $14 million and earned more than $159 million worldwide.

Critics loved it. They praised the acting, the directing, and the way the movie handled its themes. At the Oscars, Unforgiven won four major awards: Best Picture, Best Director for Eastwood, Best Film Editing for Joel Cox, and Best Supporting Actor for Hackman. Eastwood also earned a nomination for Best Actor but lost to Al Pacino for Scent of a Woman.

The film has kept its reputation as one of the greatest Westerns ever made. Rotten Tomatoes shows a 96 percent approval rating, and Metacritic gave it a score of 85 out of 100. In 2004, the Library of Congress chose it for the National Film Registry, calling it culturally and historically significant.

Critics like Jack Mathews from the Los Angeles Times called it “the finest classical Western to come along since perhaps John Ford’s The Searchers.”

Looking back, it’s hard to imagine Unforgiven without Hackman. What started as a role he wanted to refuse turned into a career highlight and won him an Oscar. Clint Eastwood convinced him to take one more step into violent territory, but this time it wasn’t for empty thrills. It was for a story that showed the true cost of violence.

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