When Clint Eastwood tried to recruit Gene Hackman to co-star in what would be his last Western film, Hackman initially turned him down. The actor was tired of doing violent films, and the script Eastwood had shown him was indeed violent.
Eventually, Eastwood managed to change Hackman's mind by insisting that his new project would ultimately have a pacifistic message.
"I think we can make a great statement against violence and killing if we do this right," Eastwood recalls telling him in an interview posted to YouTube in 2009 by the American Film Institute.
