Richard Donner: “I said to Gene Hackman at our initial meeting in Los Angeles for Superman, ‘Look, Lex Luthor is bald and a skull cap is a pain in the ass and it’s going to be hot. Would you consider shaving your head for the picture?’ He said, ‘No, I’m no shaving my head and I’m not going to wear a skull cap.’ And I said, ‘But Lex Luthor is bald.’ He said, ‘That’s your problem.’ So I said, ‘The mustache? You’d shave your mustache, wouldn’t you? At least that?’ He said, ‘No, the mustache stays.’ And that was kind of it. ‘Good luck. Nice meeting you.’ Two months later I was over in London when he arrived. I had figured out what to do with the hair: we would present him as a bald guy who wore wigs. On Gene’s first day of shooting I asked the makeup man Stuart Freeborn, one of the really great makeup men. I said, ‘Stuart, does he still have a mustache?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ I said, ‘Come on down to my office and bring your mustache kit.’ And Stuart came down and I said, ‘I want you to put the best mustache on me you can possibly do. I don’t want to see the lace and I don’t want to see the blue.’ He said, ‘Why?’ I said, just do it. Okay, so he did it. And then he left and I went up to makeup. Gene was there and I said, ‘The wig idea for the hair is going to work.’ He said, ‘Yeah, it’s a good idea.’ ‘Do you like your wardrobe?’ He said, ‘Yeah, it’s going to be great.’ I said, ‘Gene, the mustache – it’s got to go.’ He said, ‘No, the mustache stays.’ I said, ‘Look, we’re getting by with the hair and everything but we’ll never get by with the mustache.’ I said, ‘Come on. You shave yours off and I’ll take mine off.’ First he said no. Then he looked at me and said, ‘Alright, but you do it right now.’ I said, ‘While you’re sitting there, let Stuart take yours off first.’ I said, ‘Stuart, take off Mr. Hackman’s mustache.’ Stuart started to shake. He knew now what was going down. And it wasn’t going to be pretty. And he shaves off Gene’s mustache. He said, ‘Okay, sit down. You’re next.’ I said, ‘I don’t have to,’ and I peeled the fake mustache off. Hackman looked at me and his neck went four sizes bigger and the veins in his temple started to throb. He’s a big mother, I knew he was going to knock me through the wall. Gradually a smile came to his face and he laughed and he said, ‘I see what this picture is going to be like, but I owe you one.’ And from there on in he was a doll. He was a doll on the set with ideas. He was easy to work with. We broke the problem. He had put the chip on his shoulder and I knocked it off and I didn’t get hurt, and he became one of the dear friends of my life.”