Gene Hackman Lex Luthor
Thursday, July 24th, 2008
It takes a special kind of ruthlessness to play Lex Luthor, the villain of Superman, in a movie. Kevin Spacey recently pulled off the role with great success; but before he made his appearance on the big screen Luthor was played by the one and only Gene Hackman.
Unfortunately (according to the likes and dislikes of today, anyway) the Luthor Hackman played in the first three movies of the Superman series was a bit camp. He was the Lex Luthor of old, the villain who acted more like a mad scientist at times than a ruthless businessman. He had occasionally zany schemes that blew up in his face, often because of the ineptness of his subordinates.
But Hackman endured past the scripts. He added an extra edge of ruthless humor to the lines he was given, becoming as vile a villain as he could, given the circumstances. And, fortunately, he did so good a job that he appeared in three out of five of the Superman movies, always with the same manic darkness that made him so popular in the first place. Second-fiddle villain or no, Hackman was still a damn good Lex Luthor.