Crossword Genius

Universal actors Wilder and Pryor hard to abandon (7)

Ross

I believe the answer is:

generic

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'universal' is the definition.
(thesaurus)

'actors wilder and pryor hard to abandon' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'wilder' could be 'gene' (gene wilder) and 'gene' is found within the answer.
The remaining letters 'ric' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't see.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).

Can you help me to learn more?

(Other definitions for generic that I've seen before include "Unspecific" , "cheap drug" , "of a particular type" , "Applicable to any member of a class" , "Non-proprietary (drug)" .)

I've seen this clue in The Independent.
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