WORK ETHIC LOOKING BACK FONDLY IS OK, BUT DON'T EVER ASK GENE HACKMAN GIVE UP HIS DAY JOB.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Writer

Gene Hackman has thought about retiring. He knows that's hard to believe, given how hard he has worked as an actor for the past 40-plus years, but he really has thought about calling it quits.

Sometimes - usually on a day when he has to wake up at some godawful hour of the morning to go make a movie - Hackman will imagine himself taking a long boat trip. He plays the scenario over and over in his mind: the sun, the waves, no lines to learn, no endless hours on the set, no adrenaline rush.

No adrenaline rush. That's the one thing that Hackman can't quite wrap his mind around, because he lives for the excitement that, for him, comes only from acting. There's nothing better in the world than when he's there on the set, 80 or 90 people watching him, and he nails the scene and he can feel from the reactions of everybody watching him that he still has it, that he's still interesting after some 80-odd movies.

``I'm still addicted to performing,'' the 71-year-old Hackman admits with relish. ``And every time I say I'm going to stop, I think about this lifetime of adrenaline rushes, and I know that I'll always act. It's a love, a pure love. There are very few people who have the luxury and the pleasure of doing something they love all their life. Believe me, I count my blessings.''

Hollywood hasn't always known what to do with Hackman, a character actor whose vital, powerful authenticity has won him fame, fortune and an unusual number of leading-man roles for a self-described ``old man with baggy chins, tired eyes and receding hairline.'' He elevates every movie he's in, but, too often, that means turning a bad film into a mediocre one. But for Hackman, a job is a job, and he's never been one to initiate his own projects, preferring what he calls the ``surprise of opening a script and finding somebody I've never seen or heard.''

Translation: Hackman takes them as they come. And if that means appearing in movies that are beneath his talents (``The Replacements''), then so be it. Fortunately, what's been coming in lately has been pretty good. Hackman may appear in five movies this year, ranging from Wes Anderson's new comedy ``The Royal Tenenbaums'' to David Mamet's latest crime drama ``The Heist.'' Hackman will also star in the Bosnian war drama ``Behind Enemy Lines'' and was recently seen in a memorable cameo in ``The Mexican.''

``It worked out pretty good,'' Hackman says. ``A lot of movies came along with fairly short schedules and with roles that I thought I could do.''

The biggest surprise of this year's crop might just be ``Heartbreakers,'' which arrives in theaters today. Sigourney Weaver and Jennifer Love Hewitt play a mother-daughter con team looking for one last score. Hackman plays the target, William B. Tensy, an odious tobacco tycoon described as the East Coast's largest producer of phlegm.

The movie is the rare chance to see Hackman work in a broad comedy, a genre, judging from his zesty performance, that he can handle just as well as the intense dramas that usually come his way.

``People tend to associate me with serious, harder kinds of guys, so I don't see many comedy scripts, even though I've done some,'' Hackman says. ``I guess people don't think I'm funny, even though I think I have a good sense of humor.''

Blame Popeye Doyle. Ever since he won the best actor Oscar in 1972 for playing the hard-nosed narcotics officer in William Friedkin's Oscar- winning picture, Hackman has been stereotyped as being a bit of a hard case himself. And he'd like to take a moment to dispel that notion.

``This is going to surprise some people, but I like watching old 'In Living Color' episodes,'' Hackman says. ``That's my sense of humor. Sure, I like watching Cary Grant, and I'd like to think of myself as sophisticated and urbane, but I love watching Jim Carrey, too. A lot of it is so awful, so crass, but it turns me on.''

And that's why he signed up for ``Heartbreakers,'' much to the delight of his co-stars.

``With Gene Hackman, my worry was that I worship him so much that he could not possibly be repulsive enough to play this character,'' Weaver says. ``But I was so wrong. With the fake teeth, age spots, cigarette smoke billowing from every pore, and Gene's brilliance, he has created one of the most hilariously disgusting characters in movie history.''

Adds the film's director, David Mirkin: ``I've always been aware of how incredibly funny Gene Hackman is. His scene as the Blind Man in 'Young Frankenstein' is one of the funniest of all time, and he was brilliant as Lex Luthor in 'Superman.' It was really a passion of mine to work with this great comedic actor who I don't see in enough comedies.''

Outside of having to puff on nonaddictive herbal cigarettes (Hackman doesn't smoke) and learning how to inhale, Hackman says he had a fine time playing the pasty-faced, red-nosed codger. The movie did provide a reality check, however.

``I didn't have to spend that much time in makeup, which is interesting to be at the point where you don't feel like you need a lot of old-age makeup,'' Hackman says. `` 'Interesting' maybe isn't the best word. How about 'scary'? I don't feel old, and then I look up there on the screen and I see this old guy and I say, 'Oh my God, something's wrong here.' But, at least with this movie, I can lay it all off on the makeup.''

If there's one thing that Hackman is willing to begrudge the advancing years, it's a fondness to indulge now and then in nostalgia. He has rarely given interviews throughout his career, but now, when he does the rare one or two, he finds it a tolerable way to look back on some memorable times.

The conversation meanders from his teen years in the Marine Corps to his earliest experience on stage, acting with Zasu Pitts at the Pasadena Playhouse (``not too many of us still around who can say they've worked with a silent-screen star'') to living with another struggling actor, Dustin Hoffman, and trying to make it in New York.

``I always had it in my head that I wanted to be an actor, but when I was in high school, I was too shy to do anything about it,'' Hackman says. ``Pasadena was the first time I had the courage to actually get up there on stage and see if I liked it or if it was just some dumb idea in my head.''

Hackman pauses, lost momentarily in the memory. ``It turned out to be a pretty good idea after all.''

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo: (1 -- cover -- color) Gene Hackman does it for the love of the craft, and his latest is the offbeat `Heartbreakers'

(2) no caption (Gene Hackman)

(3) Gene Hackman plays a crusty tobacco tycoon and Sigourney Weaver is half of mother-daughter con team preying on men's weaknesses for sex in ``Heartbreakers.''

(4) Jennifer Love Hewitt, left, Gene Hackman and Sigourney Weaver in ``Heartbreakers.''