Deliverance to play Lewis Medlock. Jack Nicholson was considered for the role of Ed, while both Donald Sutherland and Charlton Heston turned down the role of Lewis. Other actors who were attached to the project included Robert Redford, Henry Fonda, George C. Scott and Warren Beatty. The film is infamous for cutting costs by not insuring the production and having the actors perform their own stunts (most notably, Jon Voight climbed the cliff himself). In one scene, the stunt coordinator decided that a scene showing a canoe with a dummy of Burt Reynolds in it looked phony; he said it looked
Warren Beatty of the film, he credited Hackman with giving the "most authentic performance in the movie, so textured and so moving," recalls Dunaway. He was impressed with Gene Wilder after seeing him in a play and didn't even need him to audition, in what became Wilder's screen debut. And Beatty had already known Pollard: "Michael J. Pollard was one of my oldest friends," Beatty said. "I'd known him forever; I met him the day I got my first television show. We did a play together on Broadway." "Bonnie and Clyde" went on to be a critical and commercial success, despite the