Kevin Costner chokes up over Gene Hackman in resurfaced clip: ‘My favorite actor’

An untouchable legacy.

An interview in which Kevin Costner recalled an emotional exchange with Gene Hackman that left him choked up resurfaced Thursday after news of the “French Connection” star’s mysterious death broke.

Hackman, 95, his wife, classical pianist Betsy Arakawa, 65, and one of their three dogs were found dead at their Santa Fe, New Mexico, home on Wednesday. The deaths are still under investigation by local police, but according to the sheriff of Santa Fe County, Hackman may have been dead for over a week before the couple’s bodies were discovered by a maintenance worker.

As tributes to Hackman poured in this week, Costner, 70, was among those who posted a clip from the 2017 sit-down he did with sports commentator Rich Eisen.

In the video, Eisen asks the “Yellowstone” star what it was like to be on set with Hackman, who he starred alongside in the 1987 political thriller “No Way Out.”

“I would say probably Gene was the best actor that I’ve ever worked with,” Costner told Eisen at the time.