Hollywood recluse and legendary actor Gene Hackman has been seen in public for the first time in years.

The 93-year-old two-time Oscar award winner hasn’t appeared in a movie for almost 20 years and is known for shunning Hollywood, even declining interviews.

The French Connection star looked fit and healthy as he stepped out for some lunch and filled up his truck after doing some yardwork on his private ranch in New Mexico on Sunday, March 5.

Hackman continued to exude his effortlessly cool demeanour with his signature moustache, dressed in a grey long-sleeve shirt, blue jeans, a fleece vest, and a baseball cap.

Fans were thrilled to get a rare glimpse of the film legend.

The Unforgiven star’s last on-screen appearance was in the 2004 comedy Welcome to Moosport, which is also the same year he announced to Larry King that he thought he might be done with acting.

Towards the end of 2021, Hackman granted his first interview in ten years, to The Post, to mark the 50th anniversary of The French Connection, the film that saw him win his first Best Actor Oscar in 1972.

During the interview, Hackman revealed he hasn’t seen the film since its debut, and said he has no plans of ever watching it again.

“[I] haven’t seen the film since the first screening in a dark, tiny viewing room in a post-production company’s facility 50 years ago,” he said.

“If the film has a legacy, I am not sure what that would be. At the time, it seemed to me to be a reverent story of a cop who was simply able to solve and put a stop to a major crime family’s attempt to infiltrate the New York drug scene.”