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
Warren Beatty Warren Beatty Henry Warren Beatty ("né" Beaty; born March 30, 1937) is an American actor and filmmaker. He has been nominated for fourteen Academy Awards – four for Best Actor, four for Best Picture, two for Best Director, three for Original Screenplay, and one for Adapted Screenplay – winning Best Director for "Reds" (1981). Beatty is the only person to have been nominated for acting in, directing, writing, and producing the same film, and he did so twice: first for "Heaven Can Wait" (with Buck Henry as co-director), and again with "Reds". Eight of the films he has produced have