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
Faye Dunaway drama "Crystal or Ash, Fire or Wind, as Long as It's Love" as she wanted to work with director Lina Wertmüller. In 1990, she was reunited with Robert Duvall, with whom she had co-starred in "Network", in Volker Schlöndorff's adaptation of the Margaret Atwood novel of the same name, "The Handmaid's Tale". The film did not do well at the box office but Dunaway's performance earned her good reviews. Roger Ebert wrote that, "Duvall and Dunaway provide the best moments in the movie, he by showing the unconscious egotism of the male libido, she by showing that in all times