Ridley Scott: The Hollywood Interview

Filmmaker Sir Ridley Scott.


RIDLEY SCOTT:
CAESAR CINEMATICA MAXIMUS
by
Alex Simon

Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the May 2000 issue of Venice Magazine.

Ridley Scott has been one of the cinema's most successful commercial filmmakers, boasting one of the most distinctive visual styles in film history. Born November 30, 1937 in South Shields, England, he entered the BBC in the mid-60's as a set designer, and soon moved on to directing, turning out slick episodes for such series as Z Cars and The Informer. He then set up his own production company, Ridley Scott and Associates, through which he produced and directed television commercials that became noted for their technical superiority and visual dazzle. (Talent runs in the Scott family: brother Tony is a renowned director himself (Top Gun, True Romance, Crimson Tide) and son Jake made his directorial debut last year with Plunkett and McCleane.)

Scott brought that flair for sumptuous design to the big screen when he made his debut as a feature director in 1977: his adaptation of Joseph Conrad's The Duellists won the Camera D'Or at Cannes, for Best First Film. He hit paydirt with Alien in 1979. The box office smash about a monstrous stowaway aboard a space ship made a star of Sigourney Weaver, spawned three sequels and countless imitations. With Blade Runner (1983) Scott created what many feel is his signature film: a futuristic detective story starring Harrison Ford, bolstered by the most innovative production design in film history. Although many found the film's narrative muddy, due to a hastily re-shot ending and a tacked-on voice-over by Ford, Scott's Blade Runner: The Director's Cut was released in 1993, featuring Scott's original cut of the film, which many feel is far superior to the original. It also spawned the trend for "Director's Cuts" of every film under the sun being re-released in theaters, and on video and DVD.

Scott's next two films, the sumptuous fantasy Legend (1985) starring Tom Cruise, and the thriller Someone to Watch Over Me (1987) performed poorly at the box office, in spite of critical acclaim for the latter. Black Rain, a police thriller set mostly in Japan starring Michael Douglas, proved a big hit worldwide, putting Scott back on the A list map, and paving the way for Thelma and Louise (1991), an Oscar winner for Best Screenplay, following the exploits of two daring heroines (Susan Sarandon, Geena Davis) as they make a mad dash across the southwest.

Scott's next three films: the Christopher Columbus biopic 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992), the sea-faring adventure White Squall (1996) starring Venice fave Jeff Bridges, and the military drama G.I. Jane (1997) starring Demi Moore, failed to garner much critical or box office kudos for Scott, although each film has its defenders, and all three boasted some spectacular moments.

Scott's latest should put him back on the critical and box office map where he belongs. Gladiator tells the story of Rome's greatest general Maximus (Russell Crowe), the favorite of ailing Emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris). When the emperor lets it be known that Maximus will be his successor, passing over son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), Commodus tries to have Maximus assassinated. With being too much a spoiler, let's just say that Maximus is reborn a gladiator, eventually making his way to the Coliseum in Rome, where he and Commodus meet for a final show-down! Great writing, characters, direction, cinematography, and performances from the entire cast, which also includes Connie Nielsen, Djimon Hounsou, and the great Oliver Reed in his final role, make this winner the one to beat this summer. The Dreamworks release hits theaters on May 5.

Ridley Scott sat down over a fine Cuban cigar with Venice to discuss his latest cinematic opus, the genius of Oliver Reed, and what really happened with Blade Runner.

Was there trepidation on your part making a gladiator picture in the shadow of a classic like Spartacus?
No, the only film that I was worried about was Airplane! Remember the scene when Peter Graves asked the little boy if he liked "gladiator pictures"? (laughs) But seriously, no. I mean, you could never hope to duplicate Spartacus, or any great film for that matter. I saw Gladiator as a historical epic that was character-driven. All the characters in it have a great deal of humanity, especially Russell's character, Maxiumus.

Tell us about working with Russell Crowe. There's no doubt after seeing this film that he's going to be a huge star.
Russell's a collaborator. He brings a great deal to the table when he takes on a role, really gives it his all and has a lot of ideas. As soon as we cast him as Maximus, he started reading Marcus Arrelius' writings and familiarizing himself with the history of the Roman Empire. He's very well read on a lot of other subjects, as well.

The battle scenes were tremendous. They really put you in the middle of the action. Were they difficult to shoot logistically?
Not at all. Originally we went to Germany to shoot the opening scenes, then relocated to the UK when we discovered that a section of forest near Galway airport was going to be razed for construction. The owners of the land said it would be cheaper if we burned it down that if they cut it down, so they said "come in and do what you like." We were able to shoot a lot of the film there, and did the entire opening in just three weeks. Any time you change locations, you're costing yourself a great deal of time and money, so it helps if you can contain it.

Oliver Reed gives his last performance in Gladiator. He was a legendary character.
Oliver was what I'd call a "charming scoundrel." He was a wonderful actor, incredibly intense. I knew for that role I needed a Robert Shaw-type actor who was tough as nails, but also had a sensitive side. There aren't too many actors like Shaw, or Reed around anymore. The only other two would be Richard Harris and David Hemmings, both of whom are in the film as well. Although, I think Russell has a lot in common with them. Very straightforward, no-nonsense sort of guys. Old school.

Didn't Reed still have scenes left to shoot when he died?
Yeah. He still had three weeks left. I had to shoot most of his scenes at the end of the film using his body double, then for the close-ups we superimposed Oliver's face onto the body double's. Eerie, eh? I also was able to use some shots from earlier scenes and outtakes. But thank God for digital technology...Oliver went out the way he would have wanted to, I should think: with a pint glass in his hand.

Let's talk about your background.
I was born in the north of England, near Newcastle where my father was in the shipbuilding business and also in the army. We lived all over Europe, in Germany for five years. That was a wonderful experience. I wanted to be an artist, so my dad encouraged me to pursue art school, which I did. Then I went to work for the BBC, started as a set dresser and enrolled in their production program. Then I started directing live television shows like Z Cars and a show not many people in America know called The Informer, which was created by a wonderful director by the name of Peter Collinson (The Italian Job).

Then you went on to become the top commercial director in Britain. Ridley Scott and Associates was the biggest firm of its kind, right?
Still is, actually. We employ over 50 directors at the moment. I loved doing commercials. It was a great training ground for me. But I couldn't wait to start making features.

When you were a kid, was there one film you saw that really grabbed you where you said "This is what I have to do?"
The Searchers (1956). I remember just being blown away by that film. I love westerns. I want to do a western some day. I don't think anyone else ever captured the west the way John Ford did. I actually went to the hotel in Monument Valley, where they used to stay. They have the "John Ford Room" there with all these production photographs that he took. Vistas, panoramas, that sort of thing. They're the most extraordinary photographs...As far as other films that influenced me, I'd have to say The Third Man (1949), and later on 2001 (1968).

I understand that with Alien, you never intended it to be thought of as a "horror film."
No, not at all. What we were after was sort of a variation on Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians set in space. We wanted it to be character-driven, and suspenseful, and not all about jumping out of your seat in fright. One of the things I'm most proud of about that film is Jerry Goldsmith's score. My God, what a score! I think it's one of the most-imitated film scores ever written, and for good reason. I just saw a sci-fi horror film the other day that had a score that was almost exactly like Jerry's score from Alien. I guess when you've got a good thing...

Why weren't you involved with the sequel, Aliens (1986), which James Cameron did?
Very simple: they didn't ask me! To this day I have no idea why. It hurt my feelings, really, because I thought we did quite a good job on the first one. I had an idea for a fifth installment in the series. It would be all about the aliens themselves: what their world and civilization are like. What made them tick. We always thought of that derelict spacecraft where they found all the eggs in the first one was a sort of aircraft carrier or bomber. They would drop the eggs on the planets they wanted to conquer, then come back a few years later after the landscape had been "cleared," so to speak.

Sounds like a great idea.
Yeah, but they still haven't asked me to do it! (laughs)

What happened with Blade Runner? Was it taken away from you and re-cut, then you released The Director's Cut 10 years later?
No, not at all. It wasn't taken away from me. The version that was The Director's Cut was in fact my original cut, and it tested badly. That simple. So we went and re-cut it, added in Harrison's narration and tried to play up the Raymond Chandler angle, which just didn't work. We never really nailed the Chandler feel in that narration. The last film that really did was Apocalypse Now (1979), where the narration was done brilliantly.

You could hear the disdain in Harrison Ford's voice in that narration.
Oh yeah, he was not happy about doing that at all. The funny thing was, looking back on the test scores, they really weren't all that bad, in the 60's I think.

Any advice for first-time directors?
Even when you feel like you don't know what you're doing, give a direction, give an order to the crew, then very calmly go into your trailer, sit down and say to yourself "What the fuck am I going to do?" (laughs) You can never know exactly what you're going to do at any given time during a shoot. You have to be open to changes, to accidents, many of which are happy ones. Just remember: even after you've been directing a long time, there are going to be days when you still feel like you don't know what you're doing! (laughs)

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Sigourney Weaver: The Hollywood Interview

Actress Sigourney Weaver.


SIGOURNEY WEAVER:
PORTRAIT OF A HEARTBREAKER
By
Alex Simon

Editor’s Note: The following article appeared in the April 2001 issue of Venice Magazine.

Revered as the leading American actress who combines indomitable strength with old world elegance, Sigourney Weaver comes by both naturally. Born Susan Alexandra Weaver October 8, 1949 in New York City, the daughter of legendary NBC TV President Sylvester "Pat" Weaver, and English actress Elizabeth Inglis. During his tenure at the network, Pat Weaver is credited with, among other things, inventing the desk-and-couch talk show format that still dominates the airwaves today, as well as creating both the "Tonight" and "Today" shows. Her uncle, the late "Doodles" Weaver, was a popular comic character actor whose face was familiar to both film and TV viewers through the late 1970's.

Re-christening herself "Sigourney" after a character in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, Weaver attended Stanford university as an undergraduate, majoring in English, moving on from there to Yale Drama School, where Meryl Streep was a fellow student. After working for several years in well-received Off-Broadway productions, Weaver made her film debut in Woody Allen's classic Annie Hall (1977, she's Woody's date outside the movie theater towards the end). It was in Ridley Scott's groundbreaking Alien (1979) that Weaver became a bona fide star, playing Lt. Ellen Ripley: part sex symbol, part Earth mother, and part double-barreled action hero, the first film heroine of the post-feminist era. Weaver reprised the role in three sequels: James Cameron's blockbuster Aliens (1986), Alien 3 (1992), and Alien Resurrection (1996).

Weaver followed Alien with an impressive filmography of diverse work: as Mel Gibson's lover in strife-torn Indonesia in Peter Weir's The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), the object of Bill Murray (and a nasty entity)'s affections in Ghostbusters (1984) and Ghostbusters II (1989). Two completely divergent roles in 1988 brought her Oscar nominations (and Golden Globe wins) as Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively: as doomed naturalist Dian Fossey in Michael Apted's Gorillas in the Mist and the cutthroat corporate exec whom secretary Melanie Griffith tries to emulate in Mike Nichols' Working Girl. She did a charming turn as a disillusioned First Lady who finds love again with Kevin Kline's Dave (1992), and gave a chilling portrayal of vengeance stretched to its limits in Roman Polanski's Death and the Maiden (1994). Copycat (1995) had her visiting similarly intense territory as an agoraphobic psychiatrist caught in a deadly game of cat-and-mouse with a serial killer, while Ang Lee's The Ice Storm (1997) showcased her patrician qualities to their utmost in a chilling turn as a bored upper middle class housewife in 1973 Connecticut. In Map of the World (1999) she gave a powerful performance as an educated woman out of place in her rural community, while Galaxy Quest (1999) gave her opportunity to flex her comedic muscles again as a former sci-fi TV show sexpot who is forced to fight off real-life alien monsters!

Weaver's latest firmly establishes the actress as a gifted comedienne. Heartbreakers tells the blackly comedic tale of Maxine "Max" Conners (Weaver), who along with nubile daughter Page (Jennifer Love Hewitt), have made their living conning some of the country's wealthiest men out of their fortunes. When their latest con against sleazy chop-shop king Ray Liotta doesn't quite go as planned, the women decide to hit Palm Beach, the Mecca of the rich, and make one last big score before retiring for good, setting their eyes on repugnant, ailing tobacco kingpin Gene Hackman as their mark. When Page falls for a good-hearted local tavern owner (Jason Lee) who might, or might not, be harboring a major bankroll of his own, things get complicated. Heartbreakers is a funny, down-and-dirty comedy that will leave you with a smile on your face long after the end credits have rolled, and Weaver is a delight to watch, working her magic alongside fellow acting heavyweights Hackman, Liotta and (in a wonderful cameo) Anne Bancroft. Sigourney Weaver sat down with Venice recently over lunch, looking every bit the elegant lady in a tailored red suit.

Tell us about what drew you to Heartbreakers.
Sigourney Weaver: I think I've been looking for a comedy for a long time, and to find a comedy that has two powerful, sexy, funny devious women...I just thought it was wonderful, and (director) David Mirkin just kept encouraging both of us to be as ruthless and confident as we could! (laughs) I was also drawn to the mother-daughter aspect of the story. Underneath all the sort of Dirty Rotten Scoundrel elements of the story, I thought there was something very real going on between the mother and daughter. This is going to sound terrible, but I can understand conning your daughter to get her to stay home a little longer! (laughs) I know, because I have a daughter. Even thought she's only 10, I can understand not wanting to let her go.

How was it working with Gene Hackman, who I understand is a real hero of yours.
I was worried, because I thought 'How can I play someone who's so repulsed by him?' because I think he's fabulous! Then he came in wearing this horrible make-up, oozing smoke. (laughs) You'd never believe it, but Gene's never smoked! He's been a total non-smoker his whole life. But he was able to do all those things that smokers do, having the cigarette just hang there, not getting the smoke in his eyes. It just got all over me! This is definitely a non-smoking movie.

Is it true that comedy is the hardest thing for an actor to do?
I don't think it's the hardest thing for me to do. I think I feel more at home in it sometimes than drama, probably because my father did a lot of early television drama, so there was a great priority in our family on being funny, and telling jokes, stuff like that. It's just harder to find a good film comedy and a director who understands how to shoot and cut it. Getting all those elements to work is what's hard, and when Heartbreakers came along, I knew how special it was...also working with Jennifer was wonderful. I felt that we really could have been mother and daughter. We had about three weeks of rehearsal, so we really got to know each other pretty well. She was also really sweet with my daughter.

I could see a little bit of your Working Girl character in Max.
Well, I actually felt a little sympathy for Max. I think in her heart, she knew what she was doing was wrong, but still felt that the end was justified. Luckily, she's redeemable. My husband saw the film again last night and said "You know it's really hard for us to like her in the beginning." But, if you get caught in these situations, I think a mother will do anything to protect her daughter...If you think about it, what they do is a combination of acting and psychology. I never realized how much psychology was involved in conning. You really have to be able to disarm people, and get them to trust you. It's fascinating, really.

Your scenes with Ray Liotta looked like you guys were having a lot of fun.
I think Ray really steals the movie. He's so out there! Because he has such a big heart in reality, he plays the comedy really well. He's also a real gentleman. There are many times in the movie when Jennifer and I had to be in intimate situations with Ray, and he was always so considerate. That can make a big difference.

Show business runs in your family. Are you an only child?
No. I have an older brother who lives in Salt Lake City. He has four kids.

What was it like growing up around television's "golden period"?
I think most children in those days were sort of sheltered from what their parents did. We did have people drop by the house sometimes. I had chicken pox once and Art Linkletter came by. We have a movie of it, actually. (laughs) As far as I was concerned, everyone's father ran a network. My father clearly loved what he did. He had come from radio, then started running TV stations, and would always come home laughing. I knew that it was not a fair business early on, because dad had some real ups and downs. He started the first cable company in '63 and was put out of business illegally. I knew that it was a rough business, but a great business. So when I came into the business, my expectations were really low. I never thought that success or fame would make me happy. Fame looks much better in the movies than it does in real life.

Were you always drawn to acting?
No. I was very shy as a kid. I'm always amazed when I hear people say things like "I've always wanted to be an actor since the age of eight," because I would have never had the confidence to say that. It looked impossible to me. I was hesitant to follow in my parents' footsteps, but it was in my blood. Being an actor is all about communication, sort of the same thing as being a journalist in many ways. You sort of go into the middle of a situation, suck it in, then come back and tell us what it's like.

What was Yale Drama School like?
Well, I made some good friends there, but didn't get a lot of encouragement from the faculty, more like a lot of discouragement. So it was not a very happy time for me. I learned a lot about how to survive. I think the world will tell you soon enough that you're not cut out for a career. You don't need to pay people to tell you that you're no good.

Tell us about your transition from "Susan" to "Sigourney."
That's when I was 13. I was about (6 feet) tall when I was 13. I was called "Susie" or "Sue." I felt too tall to have a short name like that and I saw this name in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby." I thought 'That looks good. I'll use that until I figure out what to do with my name.' I had the middle name Alexandra, which I thought was pretty, but too long. It's so funny, I found an old letter from my father. He always used to write me, because I changed my name, and begin the letter "Dear 'Dra," "Love Drad." And he wrote me that way for years.

Between Yale and your film debut in Annie Hall you did a lot of theater.
Yeah. I came to New York and all my friends kept hiring me to be in their plays. Christopher Durang, Wendy Wasserstein...it was great. Then about a year later, I was in the background of a Budweiser ad, I always tried to stay in the background, that way I'd still get paid, but nobody would have to see me (laughs), and I got a call for this thing called Alien. I almost didn't go. They gave me the wrong address. I called my agent and said 'Science fiction?! Must I do this?' (laughs) So I went and met with Ridley Scott. I was wearing these over-the-knee hooker boots, and must've looked about eight feet tall. I think because I didn't care at all whether I got it or not, that intrigued him. (laughs)

Let's go back to Woody Allen and Annie Hall. We just see you briefly in long shot at the end.
He actually offered me the second female lead in the movie, the girl he brings to the beach after he and Diane Keaton break up. I was in a Chris Durang play and I didn't want to leave it, because it was such a great part. I was playing this multiple schizophrenic in a play called Titanic. So I turned down that part. Woody gave me one day in this smaller part, and a lot of it got cut out in the end. I had this scene where we were in bed. I was reading the National Review and eating crackers in bed and he's on the phone with Annie Hall in California, and we also did The Sorrow and the Pity scene.

With Alien, did any of you even have in inkling of how influential this film would be?
When I met Ridley that day, and I'd read the script, I didn't really have a picture of what the alien was like. I just thought it was this mass of yellow jelly or something, not really very inspiring. Even though there was a spareness about the script that I really like. Then when I met Ridley he showed me all the conceptual sketches for the alien and the eggs that H.R. Giger did. Originally the eggs were going to have these little, baby faces on the outside. I knew that I'd never seen a film like this before, so I knew it was going to be something very special. For me, I wanted to concentrate on theater and dabble in film. This was not what I expected...They built these sets that were like an entire world unto themselves. In my naiveté I thought they'd built all these sets for us, so we'd get into character more! (laughs) I think the film still holds up very well. It doesn't seem dated at all.

The evolution of the character of Ripley over the course of the four films has been fascinating.
I think to be able to come back to the same character every few years, having learned that much more about filmmaking and acting was such a please. I felt so lucky. By the time we did the last one, the memories that Ripley has are my memories. It did happen that long ago! (laughs) It was a very weird experience, but a very rich one. People now are asking about Alien 5...I've never been big on sequels, but these days there seems to be a whole generation of people who don't see them as sequels, as much as episodes in the same adventure. Certainly I left the character in an interesting place because I never got to find out which side ended up dominating. But if it doesn't happen, that's okay too. The morning after it was (erroneously) announced that Alien 5 was going to be made, I got a call from my agents saying "Is this true?" I said 'If I were getting $22 million to make Alien 5 don't you think I'd call you guys first?' (laughs)

The Year of Living Dangerously is one of the best films of the '80s.
Yes, and it also marked the beginning of my appreciation of filmmaking and for what an actor can do on film, just for the fact that you do work out of sequence and you do never quite know what you're doing, you don't get rehearsal, there is no audience. I hadn't really embraced it philosophically before then that you have to throw yourself off the cliff and just jump into it sometimes. Life is really like that more often than not. You never know what's going to happen next. To bring that feeling to film is something I learned working on that with Peter Weir...Peter had us watch the love scenes between Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in Notorious (1946) so our love scenes would have that same, sort of old-fashioned quality. The censors back then dictated that you could only kiss for so long, so they were kissing, then talking, kissing, then talking. Peter was very adamant that he didn't want to see any tongues! (laughs)

How was working with Mel Gibson?
He's both gorgeous and a regular guy, which is a great combination. He was always trying to stay out all night, so the next day he would look tired and haggard, and look older. He was 26 and I think the best looking person I'd ever seen. We all said 'Give it up Mel!' (laughs) The Australian crews are very small, so the whole film was a very intense, intimate experience. So by the end of it, Mel, Linda (Hunt) and I all became very close with each other and with the crew. It's my favorite kind of film to work on. The Alien films had that same kind of feeling.

Tell us about working with Mike Nichols on Working Girl.
He's the best. He's so much fun, so astute. You're granted admission to a very special world when you work with Mike. We loved (my character) Catherine Porter, and modeled her after people that we knew. Mike is so smart and really understand the structure of a script. He believes in treating the material roughly, and not being too sentimental, which is why even in something like (the stage production of) Hurlyburly, you got tremendous laughs. He's able to give you one direction that liberates you for the whole piece.

Gorillas in the Mist was an amazing film and Dian Fossey must've been an amazing character to portray. You spent months in the jungle of Rwanda actually filming with wild gorillas.
Yes, we spent hours and hours with them. What a gift that was. Talk about join SAG and see the world! I knew about Dian, had read her book and was interested in primatology, but to actually travel there and be with the gorillas was one of the greatest gifts I'd ever received...We spent about three months in the mountains and would have to hike for hours a day to find the gorillas, or to even get to where we were shooting...I would say the one quibble I have with the film is that it's hard to tell a story of 18 years in a person's life in two hours. I think things really crystallized for her in the last five years of her life. That's when she really dug her heels in and became quite intractable about saving the gorillas. I think certainly that she was a lonely child, who felt closer to animals than to people. To this day, I think just being in her skin for a while made me understand that there are many people for whom there is no difference between people and animals, that animals are equal citizens of our world. Once you get used to that philosophy, it really changes the way you look at the world.

What did you learn from the primates?
I envied them, the simplicity of their lives. I remember being covered with baby gorillas jumping up and down on me, urinating on me, trying to steal my bag. I had just gotten married a couple years before and I said to my husband afterward, 'I think we need to have children. I just got a taste of it.' I miss it there. I would love to go back in any capacity. It's funny, I'm not a "channeling" kind of person, but I always felt Dian's spirit there, and because of that, was never afraid of the gorillas. You characters oftentimes become friends in a way when you spend a lot of time with them, and that was certainly the case with Dian. She was a good person.

Death and the Maiden was an amazing film. Tell us about working with Polanski.
I think Roman's probably the greatest director I've ever worked with. I don't think anyone else can do what he does, especially with that kind of claustrophobic, chilling, perplexing story. In some ways, although it was the most challenging thing I'd done at the time, it was also the easiest: we got to have one set, we worked chronologically, it was only the three of us in the cast and a tiny crew. That was a real milestone for me. I started to work in a different way and never went back after that...At the first reading, and this is a European tradition, Roman read all the parts while we sat and listened. I remember Ben Kingsley getting sort of restless, but I thought it was fascinating. He understood all these people because he'd been all these people at various times in his life: he'd been the torturer, the rapist, the helpless husband, the hunted one growing up in the ghetto in Poland. I like Roman a lot, but he's also a lot to take. I'd work with him again in a second, though. It's funny, after I wrapped Maiden, I did Copycat, where I played another very disturbed woman. After that was over, I flew home for Christmas Eve and was cooking for about 14 people. I had never wanted so badly to be domestic in my life, because I'd totally fried myself! I just wanted to hold linens and open ovens and do things that were completely real, and stay completely out of my head. That was very intense, doing those two in a row.

The Ice Storm was one of the great movies of the past decade. It really captured that era down to the tiniest detail. Tell us about that and also about working with Ang Lee.
They sent me a lot of magazines from the era so I could get a sense of what (my character) Janey Carver was looking at all the time. I think for Ang, it was kind of an Asian idea where you had children behaving like adults and adults behaving like children. It's unnatural to do that, so nature will have repercussions. It was a very Bhuddist way of looking at the story. We began the shoot with a Bhuddist ceremony where we burned incense and bowed to the four corners and yelled "Big luck!" It was an amazing experience.

Map of the World must've been an intense experience.
Yeah, we shot it in about 30 days and did several scenes every day. It was very challenging because (director) Scott Elliot just sort of let me go, whereas Roman kept me very reigned in. So it was like living through that experience. It was one of the most satisfying professional experiences I've ever had. It's a film that a lot of people are discovering through video. When it was released theatrically I think the theme of losing a child, especially so early on in the film, was difficult for a lot of people to take.

Is there anything you haven't done acting-wise that you'd like to do?
I'd like to do some more theater. I actually spoke to John Cleese last night about doing a restoration comedy, which would be fun. In many ways I'm looking forward to the strike. It might give me some time to develop some good projects. I'm working on something about Gypsy Rose Lee that begins after she stops stripping, her relationship with her son. She was a marvelous woman.

Looking at your filmography, you've been in lots of amazing films over a relatively short number of years.
I really have been lucky. With Heartbreakers, it's the kind of part I've been waiting for all my life. The other day I was thinking 'Wow, you've really managed to accomplish a lot of the goals you've set for yourself as an actor.' So now it's time to sit down and make up some new ones.

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Armand Assante: The Hollywood Interview

Actor Armand Assante.



ARMAND ASSANTE:
RENAISSANCE GANGSTER
By
Alex Simon


A veteran of over 80 film and television productions, Armand Assante first made a splash in the pop cultural lexicon with Sylvester Stallone’s post-Rocky directing debut Paradise Alley, in 1978. After making the ladies’ hearts beat a bit faster with turns in films like Little Darlings and the now-classic Private Benjamin (both 1980), it was his turn in the latter, as the suave French gynecologist who wins Goldie Hawn’s heart with what became every Jewish man’s fantasy deal-closing line that had Hollywood buzzing with statements like: “Who is this amazing, sexy French guy?” and “ He’s heir apparent to the throne of Alain Delon!” The answer was simple: the “French guy” was born and raised in Manhattan’s Upper West Side neighborhood of Washington Heights, and bowed on the world stage October 4, 1949, to an Italian father and Irish mother, the second of three children.

Growing up in an artistic household, young Armand Assante, Jr. was exposed to the theater early by his parents, and initially fell in love with music. At 17, Armand entered the American Academy of Dramatic Arts where he was the recipient of the Jehlinger Award for Best Actor in 1969, making his professional theatre debut the same year opposite Imogene Coca in “Why I Went Crazy,” under the direction of Joshua Logan. He spent years in the theatre before his film debut in 1974’s The Lords of Flatbush, remaining a devoted student of Mira Rostova in New York for more than 20 years.

Armand won an Emmy as Best Actor for his mesmerizing turn as mob boss John Gotti in the 1996 HBO production, Gotti. 2007 has been a significant year for Armand’s career, as well: California Dreamin’, a Romanian film in which he stars, won the coveted Un Certain Regard category at this year’s Cannes Film Festival. Armand also does a riveting turn as gangster Dominic Cattano in Ridley Scott’s crime epic American Gangster, going toe-to-toe with Denzel Washington’s Frank Lucas, the most notorious drug dealer of the 1970s.

Armand, who lives far from the limelight on a farm in upstate New York, sat down with us recently in the booth of a busy Beverly Hills eatery to reflect, ponder and digest a buffet of topics. Here’s a taste of that meal:

American Gangster marks the second time you’ve worked with Ridley Scott. Tell us about his process.
Armand Assante: Ridley, even when you watch his earliest films he did as a kid, is one of the greatest shooters of all time, but he is also one of the best filmmakers of all time. He hires an actor based on what that actor can bring to that specific role. He puts a tremendous amount of faith in the talent he surrounds himself with. What I love about what Ridley did on American Gangster is that he was tough on himself, as a director.

How so?
It’s all story, no indulgence. It cuts to the bone. What I really appreciated is that Ridley didn’t indulge anyone or anything in that movie. It’s just a masterful piece of direction.

I think it’s his best film.
(laughs) I’m glad you said that, because I was afraid to, but I agree. I think it’s his best film. It’s his most powerful, hard-hitting film and what I appreciate about it the most is that it didn’t soft-sell or romanticize the tragedy of heroin or the gargantuan effect it had on our society, from the top to the bottom.

What I really appreciated was how invisible he was as a director. I didn’t notice one bit of his direction the first time I saw it. That’s the mark of a great director to me.
Totally. It was all story.

Yeah, and I think someone like Sidney Lumet is the master of that. You never notice how well-directed his pictures are until the second or third time you see them.
Lumet said something interesting to me, which has since become my golden rule, and that is that 80% of a film is pre-production. And Ridley really drove this home the same way.

I also appreciated that this film, which is set in the ‘70s is very much a ‘70s film: it’s completely morally ambiguous on every level. There’s no black and white, except for maybe Josh Brolin’s crooked cop, who’s a flat-out villain. Your character and Denzel’s are far more honorable men than his character is.
That’s right. In many ways, it’s about the dangers of corporate enterprise.

I love the speech your character has about how if you’re successful, you’re going to have enemies. If you want friends, you have to be mediocre.
(laughs) Yeah, wasn’t that amazing, and true? Great screenplay by Steve Zallian. He’s sort of a throwback to the Steve Shagan generation of writers. It’s a very provocative screenplay. I remember being a kid, and actually hearing about the Vietnam-heroin connection. My father was in the Marine Corps, and he talked me out of going to Vietnam. I remember reading about how the Vietnam war was a continuation of the opium wars in China.

And who knows what’s being smuggled back in the coffins from Iraq and especially Afghanistan, which I think has more poppy fields per capita than anywhere else in the world.
I’m sure they’ll turn a blind eye to that, too. I was working in Bulgaria last year, and all the truck drivers on my floor had just come back from Iraq, and they said it was hell on Earth. They were terrified, every minute.

What was it like sharing the screen with Denzel?
He’s as big a star as you can get, and he’s that big a person, as well. He’s a tremendous actor, and I always thought the world of him, but I didn’t quite know what to expect. It turns out he’s an incredibly generous, giving person, and a generous, giving acting. That’s the soul, the magnamity of his work. It’s interesting, I heard that recently he was at a veteran’s hospital in Maryland or Washington and he said to one of the foreman, they told him a number and Denzel just wrote them a check. I could expect that from him. Very generous man, and I think his performance in this is worthy of an Oscar. It’s a very compelling performance. And Russell, as well. Beautiful work. When you see work like that, you know what goes into. They’re not only walking the line, but they’re carrying it on their shoulders.

You’re a native New Yorker, right?
Yeah, born and raised in Washington Heights.

Both your parents are artists, as well?
My father’s a painter and he supported us with advertising. My mother was a concert pianist, piano teacher, and she’s a writer. I have an elder and a younger sister, as well.

Did either of them go into the arts?
My older sister was an actress and signer for years, primarily a singer. She never recorded, but she still sings in cabarets and things.

When did you know you were an actor?
I was introduced to the theater when I was four years-old. I was smitten with the magic of theater when my parents took me to see Mary Martin in Peter Pan at The Winter Garden, in 1954. They took me to musical theater all through my childhood. I went into the theater when I was 16, and in between working in the theater and studying professionally, I’d been in the theater ten years before I made my first film. I worked almost theater on the East Coast. I did phenomenal material. I was lucky. I’ve always been a journeyman actor. Acting never came easy to me at all. Music came easily to me. As a kid, I was a professional drummer and singer. I was on the road for years as an actor, honing my craft, and even in film, I found my process was just too slow.

How so?
Just in terms of the time I felt I needed to prepare. It only comes with experience that you learn to hustle. It’s still for me an arduous task. You think a lot about what you’re trying to accomplish. It’s hard to make great material, and I’ll fight for it too, if I have to. I’ll go to bat for a producer, or director. I’ll do everything I can to help them. But it’s tough. I think the industry is tougher than it’s ever been right now. It’s hard to get independent films made, and it’s hard to get good stories made. In many ways, the digital age has changed the geography of filmmaking in that it’s made things cheaper, but it’s also made things faster. And I don’t know if that’s always fair to the creative person. It’s an interesting time, but I think that the over-informationalized and computerization of society has taken the focus away from what it is that I love, which is just stories, and storytelling. I find it a harder world to work in because of that because people are now thinking at that speed and in those terms, too.

It’s the super-processor mentality.
Yeah, and that’s not what actors, writers and artists are supposed to be about. So the pressure is greater and the expectations are greater, when in fact sometimes less may be more. Interesting time.

Also, the studios don’t seem to care if a picture is good anymore. They only care if it makes money. It takes someone like Steven Spielberg to do a Schindler’s List or a Ridley Scott to do American Gangster, which I know has been floating around Hollywood for years.
Yeah, there’s literally a handful of filmmakers left who have the juice to make the films they want to make. And the age-old phenomenon about this industry is how they chew people up and spit them out, like what they did to guys like John Frankenheimer. It’s just brutal. If you’ve ever tried to develop something yourself, you see how hard it is. You also see a lot of grift. When you see that level of corruption coming into your industry, you just want to say ‘Wait a minute, this ain’t the street!’

The first movie I saw you in was Paradise Alley. Did you meet Stallone when you made your debut in The Lords of Flatbush?
I met Sly on Lords, but didn’t get to know him. For some reason, he had me in mind when he wrote Paradise Alley. I happened to be in L.A. doing an episode of Kojack, my first job in L.A. ever, and I ran into Sly and he invited me into his office. He said “I’m doing this film, and I’d love you to play this part.” Boom! Just like that. It was a wonderful entrance for me into the business and a fabulous role. He looked out for me and was very good to me. I’ve never forgotten that. Sly’s one of the most unique men in the business. When you get to know Sly, you realize how tremendously talented he is, which most people don’t understand. He’s a very misunderstood figure, and a very hard, hard working guy.

Then the movie that really established you was Private Benjamin.
Yeah, I was very lucky to work with Goldie and Howard Zieff and Harvey Miller, Nancy Meyers and Charlie (Shyer). That was an amazing amalgam of talent that went into making that picture. It was really my first introduction to Hollywood and that first understanding of how tough it was.

Why was that?
There was a lot of skepticism about the release of Private Benjamin, and much to everyone’s surprise right out of the gate, it was an overwhelming hit, from the first screening in Westwood. I vividly remember Goldie, Charlie, Harvey, Nancy and Charlie sitting at the premiere in Westwood, and still editing in their heads, and you don’t see that kind of teamwork often. I’ve only been on a handful of projects that really made an impression, but what I continually tell people who want to make films, and somehow most of them don’t get the message, is that in truth, if you want to make a project work, stay working on it about three years after it’s released. Because if you don’t have the passion going in, it’s the passion that you have after to sustain what you held in the process true that keeps it going. Any project I did that worked, did so because the team from the inception, never let it go. I never underestimated the passion of that team for that reason. And other projects I’ve done since then that have really kicked it out of the park had that some kind of passion and commitment behind it.

What were some of those?
Stuff like Gotti, The Mambo Kings, Belizare the Cajun…it’s just about having a team that’s relentless. And I have the same feeling about American Gangster. There’s a relentlessness there, a tenacity. Sly has that. So does Goldie. So does Ridley. That tenacity continues to make an invaluable impression on me, and that’s what it takes to get anything done in this business, and you just don’t see it very often. If you’re not ready to do that, you’re in trouble, because it simply takes too much time, too much energy and too many brain cells.

You’ve always chosen to live in New York. Why?
When I tried to live here I always found L.A. to be a community of an overwhelming amount of information, 95% of which was false. It’s very easy for creative people to become addicted to that flow of information, and they stop paying attention to what their initiative is, or what their drive is. You forget what your taste is and you become addicted to the taste of others. “Well, I should really be doing this, instead of what I want to do,” that sort of thing. That’s not what you’re supposed to be about. The hardest thing about being in L.A. is being able to hold onto what you are, because it’s very easy to get swept up into what’s popular, marketable, cool, and so on.

It’s a town of conformists and if you’re an artist, by definition, you’re a non-conformist.
Yeah, and it’s very easy for actors especially to conform, because sometimes it’s just about paying bills, about getting through the week.

The same goes for writers. You might write 12 Angry Men, but your agent says that what’s selling now is comedies about 16 year-olds farting and trying to get laid.
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. And how do you keep your integrity in that situation, but also pay your bills? That’s the dichotomy.

You got to work with the great John Frankenheimer on Prophecy.
John asked me to do that film, and I thought it was impossible to make an animatronic bear work. David Selzer’s script was prescient, dealing with environmental issues, and how genetic structure of animals can be mutated. So I loved the script but in ’78, I just didn’t think the technology existed to bring it off. I turned the film down four times, but John just hammered at me to do the movie. And I’m glad I did it. He was one of the great directors. The film was not well-received at all, but John was a fascinating guy, a very complicated guy. I hammered him every day because I knew that this was an opportunity for me to learn from a master. He came out of a pool of directing giants that I knew growing up watching live television.

Since he had a stage background, how did John work with actors?
John was unforgettable with actors. He lived in the moment and wanted the moment captured on film. He was really in an actor’s face. He believed in bringing an actor right in front of the camera. He not only told me things he’d done in the past, but he’d do things to get a certain look in your eye…once, without telling me or any of the other actors, he blew off a shotgun about four feet away from us, and he got the look that he wanted. He wanted everything very pliable and spontaneous, and he got it. When I look back at some of the people I’ve gotten to work with, I’ve really been blessed. I got to work with a lot of the guys who came out of live TV when I did films in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Who were some of those?
Fielder Cook, Ralph Nelson, Buzz Kulik, Edgar Scherick and you look at those projects those guys did on television, and they stand up to anything. Story, story, story. That’s what they were about. They were a tremendous education for me. You learn by osmosis. One thing I’ll remember the rest of my life, I had the same exact experience both with Fiedler Cook and with Sidney Lumet. There was a time with each of them when I was on the set, and I said ‘I’m sorry. I’m totally lost. I don’t get where my character is. I don’t get where this scene is going or why it’s not working, so I’m asking you what should I do?’ They both said the same thing to me: “Lean forward six inches.” And the fuckin’ scenes came alive like that! That’s powerful. That’s knowledge.

You did Q & A with Lumet. Tell us more about him and his process.
It was a phenomenal book which Sidney synthesized into a great screenplay that actually could have worked beautifully on the stage. It was that hammered out. Sidney’s one of those directors who believes in a tremendous amount of preparation for everyone, actors and crew. He walks everyone through everything before he does a single shot. I doubt, maybe there’s a handful of directors in the world today, who would give an actor a screenplay in May, and say we’re going to shoot in September, and have almost three weeks of rehearsal prior to it. It doesn’t happen. But Sidney is that kind of person. I thought he deserved the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy when we did Q & A, and he just got it what, a couple years ago? If you look at his body of work up to 1990, it’s a phenomenal body of work. He’s one of the all-time great storytellers certainly of his generation, and perhaps of the 20th century because he’s carrying on an ancient tradition which is that of the real Hebraic storyteller. His father was a star of the Yiddish theater. His uncle was Jacob Adler. It was passed onto Sidney, who took it to a whole new level. The guys who originally came to Hollywood, the Jews who built the business, were about that. The western was a metaphor for Biblical stories. They were morality plays. And men like Lumet and Arthur Miller, they were and are about morality plays. They were looking for that in their work constantly.

The Mambo Kings allowed a fusion of your two greatest loves: music and acting.
It was the passionate obsession of Arne Glimcher that really put all that together, and brought all that talent together. Arne is the one who saw Oscar Hijuelos’ book, bought it, and put his love of that music, that era, and those people into the film. To think we had people like Tito Puente, Mario Bauza, who is really the father of Latin jazz, he was in his 80s then. He came in and consulted on it. All the giants of the era were there consulting for us. Antonio Banderas and I were really blessed to be in that kind of environment. It was a year before the film started to come together, so again, Arne was relentless.

In that film, as well as so many of your other films, you’ve proven yourself to have a gift for accents. Where does that come from?
Well, I grew up in an Italian household and in that era of Washington Heights, when I was a boy, I was in a building that was literally a melting pot of the world: Russian, Italian, Irish, Scottish, Puerto Rican, Jewish, French…you heard all this stuff every day in the street and it was osmosis. You just picked it up. Growing up on the streets of Washington Heights in that time was like growing up in a city in Europe. It had everything from rabbis, to hawkers, to coal being delivered by horse-drawn wagons. By around ’57 or so, that was all gone and became more homogenized. But that’s how I developed my ear for rhythm. I credit my childhood with that. That’s how I also became obsessed with jazz, and musical styles of writing. Mamet is very much like reading jazz.

Yeah, and John Cassavetes is like watching jazz on film.
Yeah, absolutely. I loved Cassavetes growing up. Minnie & Moskowitz is one of my favorite films of all time, Seymour Cassel and Gena Rowlands. I love them. They were a breed unto themselves.

Let’s talk about Gotti. How did you get into his skin, because he was such an enigmatic figure.
I studied every transcript I could find on Gotti, and the funny thing at the time was, HBO didn’t want to get into any of the legal issues, so I went to Gotti’s lawyer, Bruce Cutler, because I think four of the guys in the story were actually on parole, so it was very dangerous to talk about. So the legal issues were a little nerve-wracking to deal with, but once Cutler saw we were serious about addressing them, he was very cooperative, to a degree, and it all came together. We cast it all out of New York, and all the guys on it went on to be regulars on The Sopranos. It was one of those roles that’s a rare opportunity. I put on 50 pounds for the role, and I listened to guys who grew up with him in Howard Beach, and guys who knew him. I could never get around Gotti himself. You start to listen to the rhythm of the way they communicate and their lingo, and I heard a recording of his voice, the rhythm of his voice, and all that put together really put me in a different zone, which was very removed. He was living an ethos of a guy from the ‘40s, of another time. That was kind of an interesting thing to work with. (Writer) Steve Shagan picked up on that in the writing. In some of the transcripts of things he’d said, I come across these amazing things, things a Mexican revolutionary would have said in the 19th century, that were almost like poetry, and we interjected them into the film. He said something about the poor to the effect of “You think I was put on this earth to make them rich and me poor,” things like that, that would have been more fitting coming from Pancho Villa or Che Guevara than a mob boss from New York. But the fact that he tried to conduct his operation like it was in another time was both what made him unique, and was also his undoing, because that time was over.

In his own way, did you see him as an honorable man?
To me, he’s honorable in the fact that he maintained his honor and held a tremendous dignity in the face of something that was almost a delusion. His ethos was something that was decades removed from what the mob was about in that time. For me, the movie isn’t even really about Gotti. It’s about how the media or the government, and sometimes even I get confused about which is which, controls our perceptions. Is this democracy, or is this the media’s version of what a democracy is? What Gotti was about, and I think why it struck a chord with people to such a degree, is that the media can inflate something to much that the entity being inflated can start to believe its own ethos and the ethos being projected upon them. And if you allow yourself to reach that high a profile, the government can pull the rug right out from under you.

Frank Lucas talked about that in American Gangster, about the importance of keeping a low profile, as did Ben Kingsley as Meyer Lansky in Bugsy. Remember when he said to Warren Beatty? “Famous for George Raft is good, Ben. Famous for you is not good.”
Yes, exactly. And that’s one of the greatest gangster films ever made, by the way. I love Bugsy. Warren Beatty just nailed that. He was phenomenal. And James Toback’s script was amazing. I did a film with Jimmy called Love and Money. He’s a fascinating character, absolutely brilliant. He understood the system at a very young age. But I think that’s why Gotti struck such a chord: we’ve come to depend on the media so much that we’ve become deluded by it. Iraq is a classic example of that.

Remember the final line of The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: “When legend replaces truth, print the legend.”
Exactly. And John Ford called that back in 1962.

You’ve done a lot of work in Eastern Europe recently. Tell us about some of your impressions.
It’s one of the most exciting places in the world to work for the simple reason that you’re working with unobserved talent. They’re not conforming, they’re not even noticed, so they’re very pure in their reactions. The one film I did, California Dreamin’, with a young director named Christian Nemescu, who was killed in a car accident right after the film wrapped. 27 years-old. It won Cannes in the Un Certain Regard category. Christian, to me, was like a neo-realist from Italy. Those films were like reflex reactions to what is happening in society. That was his talent. He was a very gifted young man, so it was very sad on so many levels. But Eastern Europe is now what I imagine Italy was like right after WW II, because it’s being rebuilt and there’s a feeling that anything is possible. They’re just beginning to find themselves after going through generations of repression and corruption. It’s “You know what? This is who the fuck we are in the face of these Fascist bastards!” And anything that comes from the heart like that on film, is very exciting.

We’re coming out of what I think will be recorded as the darkest period in our country’s history.. We’re just now seeing films like In the Valley of Elah that are dealing with what’s been happening. Do you think that, as in Eastern Europe, there will be a sort of artistic renaissance here?
There’d better be. One of the great things about this country is that you can speak out, but you have to make a point of it. It has to become your obligation as a writer, actor or filmmaker. You can’t hide under a rock. That’s what I’ve always respected about the people of this country and certain people in the Hollywood community: they’re harbingers of things to come.

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ANTHONY HOPKINS: The Hollywood Flashback Interview

Sir Anthony Hopkins.


When I was asked by Venice Magazine to interview Anthony Hopkins in September of 2002, then-as-now he was regarded as perhaps the greatest living actor in the English-speaking world. That said, I wasn't sure what, or whom, to expect. Hopkins was known for having a somewhat mercurial personality, as well as not being a man to suffer fools gladly. Fortunately, I found him to be a very friendly, open and erudite gent with a remarkably diffuse and quite brilliant mind. Below, when Hopkins starts talking about his experience on Richard Attenborough's film MAGIC, notice how the conversation shifts suddenly to the Bee Gees, John Travolta and SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, then effortlessly back to the topic at hand. This was my impression of Anthony Hopkins throughout our talk: insatiably curious about everything, even his memories, and able to mentally multi-task with an ease that was quite breathtaking.

Our primary topic of discussion was Hopkins' final turn as Dr. Hannibal Lecter in Brett Ratner's RED DRAGON, the second (and completely unnecessary) filming of Thomas Harris' first Lecter novel of the same name, previously filmed by Michael Mann in 1986 as MANHUNTER, one of the seminal films of the '80s. Still, watching Hopkins tackle the role again was great fun, and he obviously relished not only playing Lecter, but discussing the good doctor, as well. Hopkins continues to grace films that dominate at the box office, most-recently in Joe Johnston's reboot of THE WOLFMAN, playing father to lupine-infected Benicio Del Toro.

I've run into Hopkins several times since, and he always remembers our breakfast at Santa Monica's Miramar Hotel that chilly September morning.

ANTHONY HOPKINS SERVES HIS FINAL COURSE
By
Alex Simon

Felt by many to be the heir apparent to Laurence Olivier as the world's finest English-language actor, Philip Anthony Hopkins was born December 31, 1937 in Marga, Wales, the son of Muriel and Richard Hopkins, who worked as a baker. Young Anthony was categorized a "slow learner," and had trouble in school, feeling himself to be an outcast, a stigma which followed him until he left Wales to pursue his dream of becoming an actor.

Following repertory work, Hopkins attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and then went on to Laurence Olivier's National Theater, where he distinguished himself as one of the company's most promising young actors. Although he made his film debut with a bit in a little-seen Lindsay Anderson film called The White Bus (1966), it was his turn as the conflicted gay prince Richard the Lionheart in the classic The Lion in Winter (1968), opposite Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole, that first brought Anthony Hopkins to international attention.

While the next two decades brought Hopkins solid film roles as well as two Emmy-winning turns on the high-profile telefilms "The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case" (1975), playing accused kidnapper Bruno Richard Hauptmann, and "The Bunker" (1981) a chilling evocation of Hitler's final days, with Hopkins' bravura acting as Der Fuhrer a turn that still sparks discussion, true stardom eluded him, until fate intervened in 1991...

The Silence of the Lambs won five 1991 Academy Awards, include a Best Actor statuette for Hopkins. Along with his newfound star status, a new character was unofficially inducted into the pop cultural lexicon: Dr. Hannibal "the cannibal" Lecter, a role for which Hopkins has become synonymous (although the part was originated by Scottish actor Brian Cox in Michael Mann's 1986 Manhunter). A-list parts have followed ever since, with Hopkins raising the bar a notch or two even in some of his less-than-stellar films. Outside of the theatrical world, Hopkins was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1993, and became an American citizen in 2000, although he still gets to retain his title of "Sir."

Anthony Hopkins sat down with Venice Editor Alex Simon on a beautiful, but chilly, late September morning in Santa Monica to reflect on his life and career.

I watched the previous two films (Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal) before seeing Red Dragon. It was fascinating to watch you evolve into the character of Hannibal Lecter. First question: do you study animals to prepare for your roles?

Anthony Hopkins: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for noticing that.

In Silence, he was definitely a snake most of the way through, but he gradually became more cat-like as the films, and your characterization, progressed.

Yeah, well, I think that even at the end of Silence he was a cat. I love cats. I love watching animals. The main problems I had, really, regarding Red Dragon were that first, I had my doubts about doing it again to begin with, because I thought that doing two was quite enough, and that three was perhaps pushing it. So I thought when Hannibal was over that I was done with the character and I could just move on and live the rest of my life, because I've played a lot of other roles, as well. Then I called my agent, Rick Nicita, one day and said, 'Dino (De Laurentiis) wants to remake Manhunter and call it Red Dragon, which was the book's title. What do you think?' He said, "Well, why not?" and I thought 'Yeah, why not? Absolutely.' (laughs) Then they got Ted Tally to write the script and we met with (director) Brett Ratner in New York, and that's how it happened. I'm really much more laid back about these sorts of things now. I wish I had been this laid back when I was a younger actor, that's just the way it is, I guess. (laughs) But this time, I really wanted to play him with much more ferocious energy, and avoid the jokes. I really wanted to show what a true monster he is. He's a killer. He's a dangerous man, not Mr. Cutesy. This isn't a franchise, like Raiders of the Lost Ark. This is a dangerous man, who's better off in jail. So that's the premise we went with.

Hopkins in Red Dragon.

Certainly all three of the directors whom you've worked with on this series (Jonathan Demme, Ridley Scott, Brett Ratner) are very different. Tell us about Brett.

He's a very bright guy, a very gifted director. Very straightforward in his approach. I think he's one of those NYU Film School guys, and he gave me a fresh look at those so-called "film nerds," because he just loves film. So that was great. He knows his stuff.

Along with author Thomas Harris, you probably know more than anyone about Hannibal Lecter. I think one of the things that makes him so fascinating to people is the air of mystery that surrounds him. We now so little of his backstory, what dove him over the edge to begin with, for example. That in mind, tell us about Dr. Lecter, if you would.

It's funny, Dino wants to do another one and go back into (Lecter's) past. Honestly, I don't know how to answer that, other than to say when I got the script for Silence of the Lambs back in August of 1989, I had never heard of the character of Lecter before, although I had seen Manhunter and liked it very much. But I didn't make the connection when I got Silence of the Lambs. I was doing a play in London at the time, and I decided I didn't want to finish reading it until I found out if it was a real offer or not, because I hadn't worked in America for quite some time. When I found out it was a real offer, I read it, and knew immediately that it was one of those roles that would make a difference for me. As an actor, I guess it's a gift that I have, so to speak, that I can pick up very quickly on what I can play, or can't play. I'm not ghoulishly fascinated by the dark side, but I understand it. I think anything that's masked or shadowy is fascinating to us. I think all the great villains of literature have been dark, shadowy figures: Mephistopheles, Iago, Dracula, Richard III. And I knew just how to play this man. I just knew.

Hopkins' Oscar-winning turn in The Silence of the Lambs.

Tell us about working with Ed Norton.

Well, Ed's a remarkable actor. I'd first seen him in Primal Fear and thought he was brilliant in it. People talk about chemistry and all that. Really, if an actor shows up, knows his lines, that's all you need. I liked working with Ed because he made the decision to play Will Graham very passive. There's one great bit, and I don't know if this was Ed's idea or Brett's, but Ed goes into a little anteroom when he comes to see me in the hospital while I'm reading the file, and he takes his jacket off, and he's soaked with sweat. I thought that was a great moment. He wasn't going to show Lecter that he was intimidated. And I think Lecter has a begrudging respect for Will Graham, even though he wants to kill him! (laughs) He was smart enough to put me away, after all. With Clarice it was a different matter, because here we have this young woman who's been sent down by her superiors and I grow to have affection for her.

And I noticed that, although Lecter maimed one woman, he's never really had any female victims, which leads one to believe he's somewhat chivalrous.

Yeah, I think so. He's not vulgar. (laughs)

You grew up in Port Talbot, Wales. It sounds like your childhood was relatively happy until you started school.

Yeah, school was my nemesis. It gave birth to my dark side. I couldn't accomplish anything in school. But I look back on it with no regrets because it was the rocket fuel that pushed me forward and got me out of there. For the longest time, I thought I didn't fit there because there was something wrong with me, but now I know it was because there was something right with me. But back then, I just wanted to do something to escape from my own inadequacy. I suppose today I'd have been diagnosed with A.D.D., or something similar. o I was very much left to my own devices. I remember my childhood with a lot of fondness, actually, although maybe I've romanticized it. I was born in a beautiful part of South Wales, which has since been ruined by the steel industry. I was born in a place called Margam, which is a beautiful, rural area east of Port Talbot.

Once you left school, and started acting, things got better for you.

Yeah, I've had a wonderful life, actually. Couple of ups and downs like anyone else, but I had it pretty easy, really. I got a scholarship to a local acting school in 1955 when I was 17. The I did my national service, which wasn't a happy time, but I did it. Then I went to RADA after that. I went to a few reparatory companies prior to that. This one director told me "You're pretty rough around the edges still. You've got great energy on stage, but you’re dangerous to work with. You hurt people on stage! (laughs) You're very talented, but I think you need to go to one of those high-falutin' acting schools, which I don't really like, but I think it would be good for you." This man was called David Scasce, he was head of the Manchester Library Theater. So I got a scholarship to RADA after that, and I was old enough by then to pick up the rudiments of the discipline that acting requires, because prior to that, I thought acting was all about pure instinct. Then I went back to work with David Scasce, who was then at the Liverpool Playhouse. When I auditioned for David this time, he said "Well, that's an improvement!" (laughs) So I stayed there for a while, and David gave me some great parts to play, and from there I went to the National Theater under Laurence Olivier. So I've had a great life, an interesting life. I've had it easy compared to a lot of people. I was thinking yesterday when I was speaking to a friend of mine that sometimes we can get so wrapped up in the human condition that we forget about a lot of the good in our lives. I've had a wonderful journey. To be still working at 64, when most people retire, is an extraordinary gift.

I understand that seeing Charlie Chaplin's film Limelight (1951) was the spark that ignited your love of acting.

Yeah, that was a funny, sentimental little film. I was it when I was about 13 years of age, and it really pushed a button in me. I just wanted to be something different. Initially, I wanted to be a musician, then a composer, and then finally I fell into the acting business. Many years later, I was in a movie about Chaplin's life. There I was, with Robert Downey, Jr., sitting in Chaplin's garden in Switzerland, and it was there I learned I had just been nominated for an Oscar. If someone had told me that while I was watching Limelight 41 years before, I would have said 'You're kidding!' (laughs)

Lord Laurence Olivier.

Was Olivier a mentor for you?

Well, he was my employer. I guess he was a mentor for me, and a lot of other people. He directed me twice, and I understudied him in a play and then went on for him. I worked with him once as an actor on-screen, in The Bounty (1984). I wouldn't say we were close friends. I was a generation and a half behind him. I knew him as well as I could, I suppose. He was a pretty colorful personality. He had tremendous drive, and ambition, and was a real force. A very nice guy and a titanic talent. His sort of talent has, in the eyes of cynics, become rather unfashionable. There are people who knock Olivier quite often, but not a single one of them could ever touch him in terms of talent. I thought he was an extraordinary man.

Richard Burton, with whom Hopkins shares a hometown.

I know that you and Richard Burton grew up in the same town. You met him as a kid, right?

Yeah, that was an odd confluence of synchronicities, I suppose. Post-war years, my parents moved from Margam to Port Talbot and took over my grandfather's bakery. That was 1947. And strangely enough, there was a young guy just down the road who was being primed to become an actor. His name was Richard Jenkins. A man called P.H. Burton had sort of adopted him and taught him Shakespeare. My mother went to London with my grandfather in 1949 and went to see a play called "The Lady's Not for Burning," by Christopher Fry, and she saw that there was this wonderful young actor in the play called Richard Burton, from Port Talbot. Early on, it seemed that I only had a talent for drawing and playing piano. There was a woman called Bernice Evans. She was an art student and was the daughter of a neighbor of my father's. She offered to give me art lessons. I used to go up to the Port Talbot post office, and upstairs there was a studio where I would take my lessons. I can still remember the smell of poster paints, sort of a powdery paint. She was a very good instructor. Then one night, the doorbell rang and this young man came up with these intense, bright green eyes. She said, "This is my friend, Richard." He looked at my drawing and said "Oh yes, I like his sailor's boots." (laughs) I got his autograph once later on, but I never got to know him. He was quite an influence on me, because he came from the same town, so I thought, maybe I could become what he'd become.

Your first big break in films came with The Lion in Winter.

Yeah, I was at the National Theater at the time, doing Laurence Olivier's production of Chekhov’s "Three Sisters." I got a phone call and this script was sent to me, and I met Peter O'Toole. I learned the part of Richard the Lionheart and I turned up in Chelsea Park Garden for an audition. This was September, 1967. Peter read the off-camera lines with me, and he said, "You've got the part." Katharine Hepburn had apparently asked him to choose the three sons, you see. She was at that point going into semi-retirement because Spencer Tracy had just died. So that's how I got it.

It's interesting you mentioning Spencer Tracy because you've always reminded me of him stylistically. You're definitely an actor for whom less is more.

(laughs) Yes, I suppose so. I've always admired Tracy, very much. There's no bullshit about him. He just gets up and does it. I've got no problem if people want to spend hours beforehand preparing before they come on-set, as long as they don't keep you waiting. And I've read Stanislavski and did the Method myself, and all that, but now I've simplified it: learn your lines, show up, and get on with it. I think that's what Tracy did, as well. I just saw a marvelous documentary about Dean Martin a few weeks ago. His widow was talking, and she said "Dino loved movies. He loved acting, but he never took it seriously." And Dean Martin was very good, as was Frank Sinatra and all those guys. All those guys, they didn't try to be Marlon Brando. They just did what they did. There's another great story that Martin's widow told: during the filming of Airport (1970), Dino was doing this scene and the actress playing opposite him was sitting in the corner, being very Method about it, keeping everyone waiting. Finally, Dino walks over to her and says "Honey, neither of us is going to win an Oscar for this, let's just do the scene so we can go home." (laughs) That sums it up for me. Get on with it. Do it. You don't need all this bullshit. Either you can do it, or you can't.

Hopkins and Katharine Hepburn in The Lion in Winter.

Tell us about Katharine Hepburn.

She was great, a tough old bird, very formidable. She was opinionated about everything. A lot of people like to eulogize people like Katharine, but all I can say is she was very nice to work with, very professional. She said to me: "I'll give you one note. Don't act, just say the lines. It works. You've got a good pair of shoulders, good head, good eyes, good voice, that's all you need. Just watch Spencer Tracy, that's what he does. That's what all the best ones do." Burt Reynolds once told me a story about Tracy. When Burt was just starting out, he was doing something at Warner Bros. where Tracy was also shooting a film. Burt sort of shadowed him one day and Tracy spotted him. "Whaddaya want, kid?" "Mr. Tracy, can I ask you something?" "Sure." "You must be the greatest actor of all time." "Thanks." "You agree?" "Yeah." "Is there anything you're not great at?" Without missing a beat, Tracy says "Life."

It seems like so many great artists have wrestled with huge personal demons. Do you see a correlation between creativity and dysfunction?

Well, I suppose so. I don't want to romanticize it, but I suppose there is. I saw a very good documentary on the Barrymores the other night. When you look at what a poor, tired mess John Barrymore was at the end of his life, and what a catastrophe that was, it's just so sad. To go insane and either drink yourself to death, or blow your brains out, like Hemingway, it's very sad. Let's just say I don't recommend it. I think creativity can be as pain-free as possible. You can create and still have a good life. I think it's to do with selfishness, some emotional retardation, perhaps. And out of all that tension and all that morass comes something which is beautiful and grand and creative. But again, I don't romanticize it and I don't recommend it. My only demon that I had was that I drank too much. I was very insecure and frightened, but I wouldn't have missed it because I have no choice! It happened. I look back on it as a valuable time in my life. Alcohol gave me a great amount of courage and energy and anger, all things I never would have had the nerve to do. So I'm very grateful to that period in my life, which launched me, in a way. But finally, that kind of fuel rips you to pieces, so I said "enough of this." but now I feel relatively peaceful, relatively happy. I'm not good at being cooped up with anyone for very long. Maybe that's why I wasn't designed for marriage. I'm not good at any kind of relationship with people, really. I mean, I've had a number of good ones, but I get restless and I take off. So I've done my rounds there. I just try not to hurt anyone anymore, and I have hurt people in the past, by pulling away from them. But I guess it all balances out in the end. Life is far too short to live in hatred and anger.

Do you feel that most creative people are born that way? It certainly sounds like you were.

Yeah, I suppose so. I just don't go along with all that rubbish that you have to be miserable. I mean, what's your problem? Being in this business is a lot better than working in a car factory, a lot better than working in a coal mine. What's the big deal? People who moan and bitch and complain about what they do, I just want to say 'Then leave! Get out of it! Go do something else!' I mean, here you are, making a lot of money, with people feeding you on the set, looking after your every need. I just want to kick them in the goolies, you know? (laughs) You know when some of these megaphones of Hollywood show up on these award shows, and just never shut the fuck up? I just want to say 'Accept your award. Say "thank you," and get off!' (laughs) I'm just not interested in all that bullshit. There are surgeons and nurses and teachers, people out there who really deserve awards. Okay, I'll stop ranting now! (laughs)

I heard a story about Olivier once, that he avoided psychoanalysis his entire life because he was afraid that if he were "cured" he'd lose the compulsion to act. Did you ever hear anything about this?

That's interesting. No, I never did. I had an encounter with him once, toward the end of my time with the National Theater, back in '73. I was in a bit of trouble, becoming awkward to work with. Olivier recommended I go see a psychiatrist friend of his. I did for one session. He said my behavior was due to "creative exhaustion," or some crap like that. The problem was, I was drinking too much! So that was the end of my psychiatric therapy. (laughs) But I don't know what Olivier's take was on that. We never discussed it.

Hopkins and "Fats," in Richard Attenborough's Magic.

You've worked with Richard Attenborough both as an actor and as a director. Tell us about him.

Richard's a nice guy, very persuasive, a great salesman in the sense that he gets what he wants from you. He can charm a lot of people. He's a good man. I haven't seen him for a long time. (Pause. Hopkins hears the Bee Gees' "More Than a Woman" playing on the restaurant's sound system) Oh, I love this song! The Bee Gees, they're wonderful. This song reminds me of when I was shooting Magic with Attenborough and Ann-Margret up in Ukiah. It rained non-stop. I remember feeding the ducks in the rain on this lakeside in Ukiah, and this was playing on the radio in the trailer. Saturday Night Fever had just come out. God, that goes back to 1977. John Travolta. Donna Pescow. The Bee Gees were fantastic, weren't they? I just saw Magic again the other night, hadn't seen it for years. It's a good movie. But yeah, Richard's a great guy, loved working with him on Magic and A Bridge Too Far, and the other films. He belongs to that old school, slightly sentimental. Cries a lot. (laughs) I try to avoid sentimentality.

You did two incredible TV movies that you won Emmy Awards for: "The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case," in which you played convicted kidnapper Bruno Richard Hauptmann, and "The Bunker," in which you portrayed Hitler in his final days.

My last dive into the bottle was during my performance as Hauptmann. His widow actually wrote to me for a number of years before she died, at 90 I believe, trying to get her husband's name cleared, and wanting to enlist my help. I'm not so sure he was innocent. They found enough evidence in his house. An interesting side note: there was a man called Schonfeld, one of the first psychiatrists to work on the case, who drew up a profile of the kidnapper, told the police the sort of man they were looking for. He said that they were looking for a lone man, a lone operator. Schonfeld became friends with Hauptmann while he was in jail, on death row. William Randolph Hearst told Schonfeld "Tell Mr. Hauptmann that if he confesses and gives me his exclusive story, I'll make sure his widow and his family are looked after for the rest of their lives. I also have enough pull to commute his death sentence to a life sentence if he'll do this." So Schonfeld took Hearst's offer to Hauptmann who said "I'm innocent. There's nothing to confess." Now that says something to me, also. Maybe he was. There's a photograph of him in the holding cell just after he's been arrested. I used to look at that photograph all the time during the shoot. And he just looks completely neutral. He's sitting with his legs crossed, and is looking in the camera as if to say "What's going on? Why am I here?" But what they did was terrible, commuting his death sentence three times, and finally executing him in 1936. He said to Schonfeld, "Let's get it over with. They’ve killed me so many times already." They had actually shaved his head and were getting ready to take him down to the chair one of the times.

Hopkins' Emmy-winning turn as Adolph Hitler in "The Bunker."

Tell us about your interpretation of Hitler. What were you able to gather about his psyche and personality?

(laughs) Well, he was a jolly, cheery chappie, wasn't he? (laughs) One of the producers said to me after viewing the dailies: "You're kind of making him a nice guy. Could you make him less human?" I said 'What do you mean? He was human, that's what's so horrific about him!' They walk among us. We all have that in us. There was a man, his name was Schuschnigg. He was Chancellor of Austria. Just before the Germans marched into Austria to take it over, Schuschnigg was summoned to Berchtesgaden to meet with Hitler. He said Hitler was quite charming, and he even let him smoke, and Hitler despised cigarette smoke. So they all had lunch: he, Hitler, Eva Braun, Goehring, Goebbels, everything was fine, but he knew something was up. So lunch was over and Hitler showed Schuschnigg into his office, locked the door and proceeded to scream at him for 90 minutes, just absolutely salivating. Schuschnigg said "I knew then and there that I was in the presence of the devil." The other thing I remember in my research is from a woman journalist who interviewed Hitler just before the Munich agreement in 1938. She said "Herr Hitler has over 1,000 books in his personal library, none of which he has read. Of course he doesn't have to, because his mind is made up." I thought that was absolutely chilling! But getting back to your question...It's funny; people ask me things like "How did you play the butler in The Remains of the Day with such stillness?" And my answer is, "Well, I just didn't move very much." (laughs) People want all these deep and complicated answers from actors and the truth is I'm not very complicated. I don't have a complicated mind. I don't have a theological bent, either. I'm not really interested in the powers of darkness, and all that. Jean-Paul Sartre wrote that God and the devil were actually the same. Love and hate are very close, dark and light, the yin-yang, you know. It's all very interesting, but I'm a bit superstitious about looking at it too closely.

Hopkins and Joan Allen in Oliver Stone's Nixon.

Of all your performances, I still think your portrait of Richard Nixon is your greatest.

I had a great time doing that, wonderful time. Long before I did the movie, I had been fascinated by Nixon, starting with Watergate. This was right before I came to America, in 1974. In those days, we got the live satellite feed about an hour later than North America did, so I remember watching his farewell to the White House staff and I remember thinking 'This is American history happening and I'm about to go live there and be a part of it!' The extraordinary thing about Nixon is that he was so consumed with the ambition to win the presidency, and that very ambition was the rocket fuel that powered his destruction. He was a brilliant, extraordinary man. I got to know people who knew him. It's extraordinary when you watch him during his farewell speech, when he says "Your enemies only win if you hate them back, and then you destroy yourself." That's when he was at his most real. Someone, I forget who, said "If only he'd showed that side of himself during Watergate, come out and said "Look, we made a mistake. I lied." He could've saved himself. He was very Lear-like, really. A tragically-flawed man. I loved doing that film.

You've been a highly-regarded working actor most of your life, but didn't really hit star status until your early 50s, when you won the Oscar for The Silence of the Lambs. If you'd had that level of success say, 20 years earlier, before you got sober, before you had a really strong sense of yourself, how do you think it would have been different for you?

Well, I can't second-guess myself, but I think I always had a practical, realistic sense of what it's all about. Of course, the ego plays tricks on you sometimes, but I think my father was very influential on me in that way. He couldn't stand all the frills and trappings of art. He didn't understand it, anyway. And I remember him saying once when I was playing some Beethoven on the piano, "What's that you're playing?" I said "Beethoven." He said "No wonder he went deaf. For God's sake, do something with your life!" He just didn't give a damn about all that. So my affectation playing Beethoven and Chopin on the piano when I was a kid, he just knocked the stuffing out of me. He didn't damage me, but he tried to tell met that life's much tougher than that. So I never had any illusions about it all. I'm not sure my experience would have been that different had a role like Lecter come earlier. It's not a question of carving out a career for myself. I never know what I'm going to be doing from one moment to the next. None of us do, really. It's funny, I saw a friend of mine yesterday and he said, "You seem so detached from all this." I said 'Yeah, yeah I am. I just can't get into it at all.' He said "Maybe that's why you're so successful."

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