The New York Film Festival wrapped up over the weekend, and one of the events that actually makes me wish I’d been in New York to attend was a 10th anniversary screening of Royal Tenenbaums, with Bill Murray, Gwyneth Paltrow, Anjelica Huston, and Wes Anderson in attendance, with Anderson collaborator Noah Baumbach moderating. ThePlaylist has the whole rundown, but probably the most interesting bit was about how everyone thought Gene Hackman was a mean, scary, prick. And thank God they put up with him, because that mean, scary prick is like a pretend father to me. Gene Hackman as Royal Tenenbaum is all-time, Badass-Hall-of-Fame-level greatness.

BUT FIRST! Did you know the part of Mordecai the hawk was originally written for Jason Schwartzman?

Though it was nearly 10 years before Anderson reunited with his “Rushmore” star in “The Darjeeling Limited,” his intention was to include him much earlier. The part of Mordecai, eventually portrayed by a hawk in the film, was originally conceived for Jason Schwartzman. Anderson explained, “We had a character that was called Mordecai, which in the movie was the name of a bird, but Jason Schwartzman was supposed to be a boy who lived across the street from the Tenenbaums in some embassy or something in an attic.”

Jason Schwartzman is okay, but let’s be honest, he’s no hawk. Dude can barely catch mice.

…Right, but we came here to hear about Gene Hackman. The gist of this next block quote: Gene Hackman called Wes Anderson a c*nt, and once told him to “pull up his pants and act like a man.”

Anderson and Paltrow both admitted they were “scared” of working with Hackman, with Huston saying, “I was a lot scared but I was more concerned with protecting Wes,” and said that no one involved with the film had “heard or seen of Gene since this movie.” She then added that the tempestuous Hackman had told the director to “pull up your pants and act like a man.” Anderson said that all of the cast members helped to protect him from the difficult actor. “You did defend me, all three of you did at various times but that’s making it sound bad,” he said before adding, “[well], he did call me a worse name” with Baumbach filling in the blank by saying, “He called you a c*nt, didn’t he?” Poor Anderson turned red and shrank his in his chair, clearing not wanting the audience to perceive that the cast and crew didn’t enjoy Hackman. In fact, near the end of the evening, Anderson steered the conversation back to the topic Hackman, trying to salvage things, saying, “Can I say something? I kind of feel, through my own fault, we kind of made Gene look bad. Do you think we gave enough balance to him?” Despite the challenging behavior, the director still fondly remembers the experience. “He was one of the things that pulled everybody into this movie. Anytime we are together and talk about the movie we always talk about him. He’s a huge force and I really enjoyed working with him. Even though he was very challenging with me, it was very exciting seeing him launch into these scenes,” Anderson said. Hackman told Anderson during filming that he thought ‘Tenenbaums’ would be his last film though he did go on to make several others before retiring unofficially in 2004.

I’d love to see a reality show where we find foppish hipsters and bring in Gene Hackman to go all angry grandpa on their asses. “But grandpa, these pants are vintage!” “Cut your hair, hippie. Whimsy is for fagg*ts.”