Sir Anthony Hopkins, a legendary actor from Wales who has been doing great acting work on stage and screen for more than half a century, has so far won an Oscar, two Emmys and three British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards, as well as Cecil Hopkins of the Hollywood Foreign Correspondents Association. Honours such as the Cecil B. DeMille Award and the BAFTA Fellowship. In The Father, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2020, Hopkins plays a man of the same name who is stuck in alzheimer's state. With his brilliant performances in the film, the 83-year-old received his sixth Oscar nomination.
Where did you grow up? What did your parents make a living for at the time?
I grew up in a place called Port Talbot in Taybuk, South Wales. My father was a baker.
I've read incredibly derogatory comments about you from your teachers when you were a kid.
Well, I wasn't very smart when I was a kid. At that time, the school teachers were very impatient with the children. But, to my surprise – and to the surprise of many people, especially the school teachers – I became very successful. I should be the least anticipated.
I suspect that if you had chosen to pursue a career in the future, it would have been music?
I didn't have the skills and patience to become a musician. I played the piano, and I played pretty well, but at the age of 17 I received a scholarship from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama[1] as cardiff College of Music and Drama when it was founded in 1949. There was an audition advertisement in the local newspaper, and I applied. I read a line from a Shakespeare play. God knows how I got the scholarship. I left the Academy in 1957 and for 10 years after I left, I worked at the National Theatre and Laurence Olivier [2]... Continue reading) to work together.
When you auditioned in front of Oliver, you were performing a scene from Othello, which he was performing at the time.
At that time, I was young and fearless. I stood there and he asked me, "So what are you going to do?" I said, "Here's a passage of Othello." "You're brave, aren't you?" So I performed. He said, "Very good. I don't think I'm going to lose sleep tonight, but you're very nice. "A few weeks later, I got a call to join the National Theatre.
Your film debut was 1968's The Lion in Winter, with a cast with Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn.
In 1967, I got a call from Peter O'Toole asking me to go to an audition with Catherine Hepburn. It had been 10 years since I left cardiff College of Music and Drama at the time, and from 1958 to 60 years I had been serving for the National Theatre, and then I went to the Royal Academy. That was in the first four years of that decade. In the six years since, a lot of incredible things have happened.
You then went back to work in the theater for a few years. Then in 1973, you had a turning point in your performance of Macbeth at the National Theatre: you quit the troupe in the middle of the show.
I just can't adapt anymore. I was thinking, "Oh, damn it. "I'm not a good team member. I was always alone and a little lonely. I was fed up with my work. It has a great director, but it's a bit brutal. So one day, I said, "Fuck you," and I left. I was warned that I would never be allowed to go back to work again. I remember it was a beautiful January morning, and I thought, "I'm free." I don't have to work anymore. "But within a few months, I went to Israel with Leslie Caron, Ben Gazzara, and Lee Remick and sat on a camel to make a wonderful ABC series called "The Seventh Chamber of the Royal Court" (QB VII, 1974).
You worked with Richard Attenborough on Young Winston (1972), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Magic (1978), Chaplin (1992), and Shadowlands (1993). Why do you think the two of you hit it off? Is it because he was also an actor before he became a director?
I think so. He was very understanding and friendly. And he's a brilliant, trustworthy director.
I heard he also wanted you to star in Gandhi (1982)?
I think he's crazy. I was haunted by this idea for years until one day I had to call him. I said, "I can't do this." You look at me, I'm in shape like a rugby player. "Of course he ended up with an incomparable Ben Kingsley.
As you can see from the Father movie, you are very open to working with young new directors. One of your early examples is The Elephant Man (1980) with David Lynch.
David Lynch is a unique genius, I suppose. He has a very strange way of directing. He often shoots a lot of shots, and I never really know what he's talking about. "Father" is much simpler because the script is very well written. Florian Zeller created the series of plays — Father, Mother, and Son — that were staged in New York and elsewhere.
Ten years after you abandoned Macbeth and left the UK, you returned to England and stayed until The Silence of the Lambs.
I lived here, and gradually my career began to dry up. I got a script for Pravda by David Hare, so I thought, "Okay, maybe I'll go back to England and stay there." I never went back. I've been in the U.S. for many years. In 1989, I was performing M. Butterfly. Butterfly), my agent called me. He said, "I sent you a script called The Silence of the Lambs. I sat in my dressing room, and it was a hot summer afternoon. I read it and called him back and said, "Is this an offer?" "I'm not sure yet. I said, "Well, I don't have to look any further. He said, "Why?" I said, "Because it's the best script I've ever read." He said, "Maybe not a big part." I said, "I don't care. Then he called and said, "Jonathan Demme will come to see you tomorrow." The next day Jonathan came over to see me on the show, and within a few weeks, my contract expired, and I went to New York to talk to Judy Foster at the Orion Studios office in New York. I know how to play Hannibal Lecter. I don't know why this is the case, but I just know. I remember sitting in a round-table office reading lines. The people around me reacted to my voice, and they exclaimed, "Oh my God! ”
You won the Academy Award for Best Actor for your performance in this movie.
I didn't expect to get this award. My opponents are Nick Nolte, Robert De Niro and Robin Williams. When I won the award, I was thinking, "Oh my God, I'm not even ready for a thank-you speech." ”
Someone calculated that you only appeared in that movie for 21 minutes, but you felt your presence at every moment.
Only 21 minutes? Oh my God. I don't even know this, and I've never considered these facts. It was a great time and it was great to be in this role.
Then you called "one of the toughest characters of my career," playing Richard Nixon in Nixon (1995). How did you do it?
All things. He was the President of the United States and I was born in Wales. Oliver Stone is the most challenging director you can work with because he won't let you miss anything. First of all, I need to practice my voice. I'm surrounded by American actors. We did a lot of reading, and then James Woods came up to me and said, "Great German accent." ”
In 2018's The Two Popes, where you played against Jonathan Pryce, the portrayal of Pope Benedict is as remarkable as all the performances you've done before.
Jonathan is very easy to work with. Although the method of acting he uses is very different from mine, we work together perfectly. We made a lot of jokes together. He was number one on the crew's phone contact list, so he used to call me "number two." I said, "Yes, but I'm Sir Number Two." We have a lot of interesting things to do together.
You recently said, "There are two scripts that have had a direct impact on me. One is "The Silence of the Lambs" and the other is "Father.". "Why do you think Father had a big influence on you?
Its script is very concise and straightforward. Very simple and straightforward, this is the art of great screenwriting.
Do you have any vision for the future?
If we can get out of the pandemic as soon as possible, I have several more films to make. I'm sure we'll be able to do it soon. I just love working. And I like to get laughter out of it. I also like to have a lot of fun out of it. The great Robert Mitchum was once asked, "Why do you want to act in a movie?" He replied, "Of course it's better than work." ”
| original posted in The Hollywood Reporter, April 15, 2021 pp.16-17| translated by Derek
References
↑1
The college was founded in 1949 as Cardiff College of Music and Drama.
↑2
(22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was a British film actor, director and producer, Oscar winner, three-time Golden Globe and British Academy of Film and Television Arts Awards, two Academy Honors and five Emmy Awards.
Columnist and podcast host for The Hollywood Reporter
Birth of Woody Allen in Midnight In Paris (2011).
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