Clint Eastwood brought back Westerns to the mainstream after Dances with Wolves, with his Best Picture-winning directorial Unforgiven. Starring and directing the Western, Eastwood also had an ensemble cast of brilliant supporting actors, with an in-form Gene Hackman giving an Oscar-winning performance.
Hackman’s Little Bill has been regarded as one of the greatest villains in Hollywood history and his ruthlessness while also being a protector has been appreciated. Eastwood’s reasons for admiring Little Bill give fans of Marvel’s Thanos validation as the Mad Titan seemed to have similar ideologies.
Clint Eastwood Admired Gene Hackman’s Little Bill In Unforgiven
Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven is regarded as one of the greatest films of the past few decades. The actor received his first Oscar for the film which put him in a genre that he helped redefine as a leading man in the Dollars trilogy. The film also had an ensemble cast including Gene Hackman, Morgan Freeman, and Richard Harris.
Eastwood reportedly admired Gene Hackman’s character Little Bill in particular due to the complexity of the character. He reportedly mentioned in an interview with AFI that Bill was not a typical villain and that he was a man driven by noble ideals and principles who happened to be at a crossroads with the protagonist.
In the interview, Eastwood spoke in detail about what he liked about Gene Hackman’s Little Bill,
He had this small town, and he ran it with a lot of strength. … What I liked about the character is, he had dreams. He was building a house and he wanted to sit on the porch and smoke his pipe and watch the sunsets. He had dreams like everyone else does, and he didn’t see himself as a heavy, he didn’t see himself as a bad guy. He thought he was always doing this on the side of right.
Hackman’s Little Bill is a Sheriff of the town, where a group of s*x workers offer a bounty for a group of cowboys who assault a worker. The actor won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for the film.
Gene Hackman’s Little Bill Has A Similar Characterization To Marvel’s Thanos
Every villain has a story but only a few have a story that makes the audiences feel that the villain had a justifiable reason for their actions. While villains like the Joker have a reason, yet commit actions that are psychopathic, Avengers: Infinity War’s Thanos had a reason so justified that he became an anti-hero of sorts.
Similar to Gene Hackman’s Little Bill, Thanos is guided by noble ideals and has a simple dream. He is driven to desperation after the gradual destruction of his home planet Titan and then becomes a messianic figure, committing g*nocide to reduce the population of the universe.
While Thanos’ actions were violent and unforgivable, many fans felt that his reasons were justified. The Russo Brothers told Medium that when they discovered Thanos’ story, they felt that he deserved the story to be centered around him. Joe Russo said,
As we started to sink deeper into that and realize that he was sort of like the central figure in a way, we began to fill him out as if he was a lead character and build a narrative around him in a way that you typically build a narrative around a lead character.
The Russos also mentioned that they took it even further by making the film center around him as it was a strong enough threat for the rest of the Avengers and Marvel characters to team up and fight.