Gene Hackman is being remembered for his legendary career in the wake of his death at the age of 95.
Hackman is known for his iconic roles that earned him five Oscar nominations and two wins. But in 1999, he got candid about the one regret he had with his decade-spanning career.
“Yes, I wish that maybe in the ‘80s, late ‘70s and early ‘80s that I had moved back to New York and kept more in touch with the theater so that I could have maybe expanded my craft and kept more in touch with what acting means to me,” Hackman told journalist Charlie Rosesaying at the time that he would consider returning to the stage.
Sylvia Gassel (left) and Gene Hackman in the stage production “The Basement”.
Friedman-Abeles/NYPL
“I’d have to be comfortable,” Hackman said of a potential return. “I’ve lived a soft life too long to camp out.”
Hackman began his career on the stage in the ’60s, appearing in several Broadway plays including Any Wednesday, A Rainy Day in Newark, Poor Richard, The Natural Look, Death and the Maiden and Children from Their Games.
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From left: Gene Hackman, Glenn Close and Richard Dreyfuss in the Broadway play ‘Death and the Maiden.’.
Tatha Swope / Nypl
When the film star accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Lifetime Achievement award at the Golden Globes in 2003, he shared, “I never wanted to be anything but an actor.”
Throughout his impressive career, Hackman said he was always striving to improve his craft. During an interview promoting his 1986 hit film Hoosiers, Hackman said he believed his job only got “harder.”
“I think it does because you start to realize — at least I have — I started realizing that I have this kind of responsibility about being good,” he explained at the time. “This is self-imposed, but I have the need to excel and a kind of compulsion about it, almost, that I wanted it to be good. I want it to be the best I can make it.”
As for what it takes to be a “good” actor, Hackman said it’s all about confidence.
“You have to have some sense of ego about yourself to be in this business,” he continued. “I have a degree of confidence about myself as an actor. That doesn’t mean that I think I’m king of the hill, or anything else, but I think you have to have that. That sense that when you walk on stage and you take stage — and I mean that in film also — that there’s a sense of command about what you do. Not that you want to push out other actors but you want that to be right.”
Gene Hackman in the 1986 film ‘Hoosiers.’.
Orion/Kobal/Shutterstock
Though Hackman spent his final decades out of the spotlight, he did give a rare interview in 2011 to GQ saying he wanted to be remembered “as a decent actor.”
“As someone who tried to portray what was given to them in an honest fashion,” he added. “I don’t know, beyond that. I don’t think about that often, to be honest.”
On Wednesday, Feb. 26, Hackman and his wife Betsy Arakawa were found dead in their Santa Fe, N.M. home alongside their dog, Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza confirmed to the Santa Fe New Mexican early on Thursday, Feb. 27.
The county sheriff’s public information officer, Denise Womack-Avila, said in a statement to NBC News that there is “an active and ongoing investigation” into the couple’s deaths.
Womack-Avila added that “foul play is not suspected as a factor in those deaths at this time, however, the exact cause of death has not been determined.”
PEOPLE has reached out to the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office for comment and updates on the investigation.
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