Gene Hackman's War

Vera Anderson, WireImage / Getty Images Retired from acting, Gene Hackman has scripted a second act for himself as a novelist. Taylor Antrim speaks to the Hollywood legend about Obama, Hemingway, and doing pushups on set.

You know him as Popeye Doyle, Lex Luthor, and Royal Tenenbaum, but these days two-time Oscar-winning actor Gene Hackman has retired from acting and taken on a new role: historical novelist. He and fellow Santa Fean Daniel Lenihan have written three works of fiction, and their latest, Escape From Andersonville is a rousing, old-fashioned Civil War adventure. Packed with carefully researched historical detail, the novel paints a portrait of a horrific Confederate prison camp in Georgia at the end of the Civil War. Hackman told The Daily Beast about sparring with Civil War re-enactors on his book tour, how he nearly adapted Silence of the Lambs for the big screen, and why he gave up acting for writing.

“My wife and I take what we call our Friday comedy day off. We watch standup comics on TV. The raunchier the better.”

How do two people go about writing a book?

It’s a strange process, in a way. We never actually sit down and write together. We meet once or sometimes twice a week and communicate by phone and email. We decide which point of view one of us will undertake before we start, we do a very sketchy outline and write separate chapters. It doesn’t always work quite as cleanly as I make it sound, but that’s the general idea.

What are your writing habits?

I write in the morning from about eight till noon, and sometimes again a bit in the afternoon. In the morning I start off by going over what I had done the previous day, which my wife has happily typed up for me. I write longhand, stream of consciousness style. I find if I try to hone it as I go I lose my train of thought.

You’re at it every day?

Six days a week is my limit. My wife and I take what we call our Friday comedy day off. We watch standup comics on TV. The raunchier the better. We love Eddie Izzard.

Sounds like your wife plays a crucial role…

She’s pretty much my only reader. She’s highly educated and very good at asking questions.

Your novel describes the horrific conditions at the Confederate prison camp in Andersonville, Georgia—a notorious piece of Civil War history many of us might not know too much about.

Escape from Andersonville. By Gene Hackman and Daniel Lenihan. St. Martin’s Griffin. 352 pages. $14.99. When you first read the history, you think, this couldn’t happen in the United States. We’re a civilized country. We couldn’t do that. Thirty some thousand men in 20 acres without any formal shelter—no barracks, no medical supplies and very little food. It was bad. It was very bad.

But you don’t demonize the South. In fact, you write from the point of view of a Confederate officer-turned-smuggler named Marcel LaFarge—one of the most winning characters in the novel.

I liked the idea that he was from the South and yet he was somewhat of a free spirit, and a really flawed character. I suppose a lot of what you write are things that you’ve either thought or done, or wish you’d done. I left home when I was 16 and for all the reasons that kids leave home at that age. I guess I was a bit rebellious. I kind of like that in people—that they have a personality that’s not totally developed by authority figures.