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A Chilling Chat with Anthony Hopkins about "Hannibal", pour le site web Zap2it, 06/2/2001.

A Gentleman’s game, Brentwood Magazine , 01/12/2001.

In Sync with Anthony Hopkins and 'Hearts in Atlantis', pour le site web Zap2it , 26/9/2001.

Titre : A Gentleman’s game
Auteur : Kathryn Harris
Date : 01/12/2001
Journal : Brentwood Magazine
 
Celebrity interviews can be a perilous business. Usually you’re granted an hour at best, sometimes only 15 minutes over the phone. During this time, said celebrity is supposed to give himself over to a stranger he likely will never see again, revealing details about his professional life, with a few personal confessions thrown in for good measure. It’s an absurd proposition. Some actors, overly primed by their handlers are fearful to reveal anything of any import, stick to platitudes about how lovely it was to work with so and so or mumble into their boots, how they’d rather not say anything at all. Others, prone to talking about themselves, become positively maudlin when you turn the tape recorder off and go your own way. Sir Anthony Hopkins is a different sort of fish altogether. He understands the impossible medium and quite subtly shapes it, until before you know it, you’re playing a whole new game.

Tomorrow I’m supposed to be talking to a group of young actors at a workshop. They’ll ask me the usual questions. How do I do it? I’ll give my usual answers. ‘I learn my lines. Show up and make sure the check is on the way to my agent,’” says actor Anthony Hopkins in trademark style — lean sentence constructs, uttered in a conspiratorial whisper with all the emotional conviction of a somnambulant soldier, which nevertheless manages to evoke mystery and makes you want to lean in for more. “Of course they won’t get that, that’s all there is to it. But it’s very simple. There’s so much hogwash talked about acting. That’s why I left England because everyone was talking about the thee-etter.”

Tomorrow I’m supposed to be talking to a group of young actors at a workshop. They’ll ask me the usual questions. How do I do it? I’ll give my usual answers. ‘I learn my lines. Show up and make sure the check is on the way to my agent,’” says actor Anthony Hopkins in trademark style — lean sentence constructs, uttered in a conspiratorial whisper with all the emotional conviction of a somnambulant soldier, which nevertheless manages to evoke mystery and makes you want to lean in for more. “Of course they won’t get that, that’s all there is to it. But it’s very simple. There’s so much hogwash talked about acting. That’s why I left England because everyone was talking about the thee-etter.”
While many an actor before him has downplayed the craft, Tony (as he prefers to be called) has done it relentlessly. Studying him today at one of his favored interview spots, the lobby of Santa Monica’s Fairmont Miramar hotel — dressed in a loud Hawaiian Tommy Bahama shirt with a mismatched tweed jacket cavalierly thrown on top, and sporting a shock of hippie-length platinum hair — you get the feeling that he has more than a penchant for playing the professional provocateur, the wild card joker.

And why not? Over the 40 some years of his career, he’s effortlessly transformed himself from King Lear to Quasimodo to Captain Bligh to Hannibal Lecter to Nixon and Picasso and back to Hannibal Lecter again. And that’s no party trick! Also consider his earlier days as a thespian in London. Hopkins was known not only as Sir Lawrence Olivier’s protégé, but also for his unruly temper. Once he halted a Broadway production of Equus to berate latecomers. Another time he walked out in the middle of a performance of Macbeth at the Old Vic. And on more than one occasion while entertaining friends at home, he retired to bed prematurely, but not before turning out the lights on his astonished guests, simply because he was bored. No doubt he was just doing his bit for tradition — think alcoholic Welshman such as Dylan Thomas and Richard Burton whose truculence was always if nothing else, (forgive the pun) absorbing!

Indeed those were the gin and vodka years. “Yes,” he confirms, “I would drink anything I couldn’t chew. Now nobody drinks, smokes or eats carbohydrates. Everyone has to wear sun block. We live in a weird world which is being destroyed by political correctness,” muses Hopkins wistfully. Since becoming sober more than 25 years ago, he lives a quieter life in Pacific Palisades (his wife of 30 plus years Jenni Lynton 6,000 miles away in England) getting excited, or so he would have you believe, about very little, least of all acting. “I don’t have the hots for it anymore. I haven’t for the last 20 years,” his words come a thought too trippingly off his tongue.

And why at age 63 is he continuing to do something that he maintains holds such little allure? He recently lent his talents to the William Goldman–penned, adaptation of a Stephen King thriller Hearts in Atlantis and wrapped, an action-comedy in which he plays a CIA agent who recruits Chris Rock. It’s hard to imagine Hopkins in a comedy until you listen more astutely to what he’s saying. It’s a subtle humor, the kind that doesn’t require more than an audience of one. “I just do it because they ask me to and sometimes because of the adventure,” he answers in such a manner as to dissuade any further questioning. His acid blue eyes challenge me with their deadpan stare, while his feet belie their nonchalance, tapping together in a tango-like staccato motion. It dawns on me that maybe Sir Anthony is shy or certainly ill at ease revealing much of the man behind the tour de force performances he’s given.

In a business that’s riddled with self-adulation, it certainly cannot be vanity that drives him on. In fact, he’s so far removed from it, the other night when he turned on the television, he was startled to see himself in The Bounty. “I turned it off immediately,” he says laughing. “I don’t watch myself, unless I’m looping or attending a premiere.” It’s not that Hopkins didn’t originally seek fame and fortune. Born near Port Talbot, Wales, the son of two generations of bakers, he was an only child who struggled to fit in. Inspired by seeing Richard Burton one day, who lived in a nearby town, he determined to be famous and rich and to get out of Wales. After a few years of amateur theater, he earned a scholarship to the Cardiff College of Music and Drama and within 5 years he was a full-fledged member of the National Theater, under Olivier’s direction. He made his film debut opposite Katherine Hepburn and Peter O’Toole in The Lion in Winter.

Though heavy drinking and questionable behavior had mired his career by the late ’70s, with sobriety on his side, Hopkins came back with renewed energy. He won Emmys for his TV roles in The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case and as Hitler in The Bunker and kept himself busy in some more forgettable roles. But when Jonathan Demme cast him as the grisly Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs the world truly sat up and paid attention. He describes having a sort of epiphany when he saw the first billboard advertising the film on the Sunset Strip, but not the sort you’d expect. “I had one of those little microscopic moments — people use that exalted word, an epiphany — that life hadn’t changed at all. It was a nice feeling to have it not mean anything. Everything seems to be in perspective. It’s just good to be alive.”

Alec Baldwin comes bounding over enthusiastically to greet Hopkins and interrupts the thought. They bear hug one another. “This man is the greatest of all. He’s the greatest,” assures Baldwin who’s in town to find the financing to finish editing The Devil and Daniel Webster, a long cherished project that he wrote, directed and stars in alongside Hopkins. “He’s tempestuous and kind of crazy but a wonderful guy,” says Hopkins after Baldwin has receded somewhere inside the beach hotel. Despite the apparent camaraderie, and Hopkins’ assurances that Baldwin is one of his favorite actors, he does not hang out with him or other show-business types, for that matter, outside the work. “All [actors] ever want to talk about is acting.” No, no actors for Hopkins. Instead he fraternizes with the likes of former President Clinton who recently invited him to Brazil where he was speaking to students and fundraising and caught by paparazzi buying string bikinis! But this is something else Hopkins doesn’t want to make much out of and brushes it away as one would do a fly out of the ointment.

“I was having breakfast with a friend, [director] Gavin Grazer who was puzzled and said ‘You don’t seem to care.’ Well there’s nothing to care about, I said. I’ve done it, been there, bought the t-shirt, sent the postcard, got the baseball cap,” says Hopkins uncannily picking up where we left off before Baldwin’s entrance. For the man who’s been knighted, Oscar’d and even invited to play honorary mayor of Pacific Palisades, it would appear so. “I don’t have any passions, no interests at all really,” he says as though it’s a revelation even to himself.

“I’m into relaxation now. Passion is a killer — Oh God, yes — and it implies intensity and pomposity. I don’t have intensity about anything really. I don’t play golf. I have no judgment on it,” he adds, immediately raising suspicion. “I don’t play cards.” Two things he’s plucked out of the universe seemingly from nowhere. What Hopkins really seems to be saying is golf is too mundane — he often talks of getting bored easily — and cards, well he’s a loner and wants no part of it. He’s actually thumbing his nose at two of the standard pasttimes of the leisure class. This all makes more sense when you hear what he does like to do with his idle time. “I do read a little,” he says casually. “I’m addicted to books. I read five at a time.”

Hopkins proceeds to rattle off a list as though they’re easy-reading Ed McBain pulp fiction. “Right now I’m reading August 1914 by Soljzenitzein. I’ve been fascinated by Russia since I was kid. I was a budding young Marxist as a boy. I used to read Trotsky’s Russian Revolution. What else am I reading? Seven Lessons from Chaos. It’s a long essay on the nature of life and chaos. Ahh, not heavy stuff,” he quips. “I find by reading, it opens my mind up. Things flow in and out of it. I don’t have any passions,” he repeats strangely. “I enjoy astronomy, reading physics. I read a wonderful book called…The Hologram of the Universe. The whole universe is one big dream, a hologram. I’m interested in that, nothing spooky. Little bits of psychology, Jungian synchronicity. I’m not into the paranormal or anything. I like the occasional biographies. I’m interested in the American presidents. I’ve read books about Eisenhower, Truman, Kennedy, Roosevelt, several on Nixon. It takes me a long time.” Hopkins has finally let slip and opened a tiny chink in his armor. But it comes in fits and starts and is delivered in the same offhanded manner as the rest of the interview, revelations which could easily be missed. And even now, he covers his tracks somewhat with the caveat, “I’ve got the attention span of a hummingbird. Probably that new fangled A.D.D. I have no consistency at all. I used to think it was a curse. I’d plan to do things. You know, ‘Tomorrow I’ll spend 45 minutes in the gym.’ But I’d look at the alarm clock and (he makes a snoring sound) go back to sleep. I could do anything,” he says gaily.

But then even when he says how fortunate he is, he says he does nothing at all, by using examples such as going for a coffee or jumping in the pool! “It’s quite a blessing. The freedom to do what I want to do.” It’s as though if he says he’s a boring chap enough times, someone will believe him, pass along the word and people will eventually leave him alone. It’s an amusing game really, the image he’s creating, which is so at odds with the rest of Hollywood. He clearly holds the key to himself and he’s guarding it keenly. Even when he talks of enjoying his garden, and I ask him what flowers he grows, he backtracks, feigning disinterest. “I don’t know. Anything that comes up. Californian flowers.” This is amusing, as I’ve heard he’s pretty partial to roses. “Nothing’s categorized. Life is chaos. Embrace the chaos, the disorder and have some fun with it. You have to live a long time to get to that place of being, my philosophy. Americans want to analyze everything, tabulate everything. It’s called control or something, I don’t know.” And this is Hopkins’ real phobia: being found out, being labeled. His agenda is to remain as private as possible, while being gentlemanly about it, by appearing to talk about himself and sometimes having a little fun at our expense. Other times he’s willing to play the fool himself as he rattles off more mundane details. “I don’t cook. I can’t boil an egg, make a cup of tea, so I go out and have breakfast with a couple of the guys. We meet at various coffee shops and eat pancakes or whatever. I don’t read newspapers, especially the L.A. papers. It all filters through in the end anyway — and becomes distorted,” he says cynically. “I drive a half-gas, half-electric car. A Prius I think it’s called. I don’t even know what I’ve got,” he laughs at himself. “It’s my microscopic whatever to the energy crisis. Or I’ll walk. I don’t have fast cars.”

One has to wonder what he does with the money he must have amassed with his several million-dollar price tag. He looks blankly at me. “I don’t have expensive tastes. I’ve got a lovely piano (a Steinway) that cost a bit of cash. I don’t collect paintings. I’ve got some things that are OK, but they’re not masterpieces. They’re probably junk actually. One or two nice pieces of furniture but they’re probably worm eaten.” The fact that he mentions the art on his walls, makes one wonder. “I don’t like to make plans for dinner. It’s too soon I’ll tell Gavin when he asks at breakfast. I love California. It’s so sunny and free. I’m really a beach bum, you know,” he offers a harmless smile. “Got to go,” he says suddenly, and puff he’s vanished into the depths of the hotel, as mysteriously as he did in Silence of the Lambs! The meeting leaves me sort of intrigued and dumbfounded all at the same time. As I drive home pondering if I’ve met Sir Anthony Hopkins at all, or merely some sort of concocted phantom, the Beatles’ song Fool on The Hill comes to mind and I hum it all the way back to West Hollywood:

Of course Hopkins holds the trump card, the joker, impossible to analyze and always a law unto themselves.