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A Cannibal Named Hannibal

An Interview with Sir Anthony Hopkins

 

He’s been a darling of the theatre and is currently enjoying life as a Hollywood movie star. But the role Sir Anthony Hopkins really wants to play is that of a beach bum in Malibu. He spoke to Tony Earnshaw about life, work and a cannibal named Hannibal.

The prospect of meeting Sir Anthony Hopkins has me drumming my fingers on the chair in nervous anticipation. This, after all, is the man who famously hates interviews, hates comparisons between his success and that of fellow Welsh valley boy-done-good, Richard Burton, and hates having to fend off accusations that he’s forsaken the theatre and sold out to Hollywood.
All of those elements will raise their head, in some form or another, during the next 40 minutes as Hopkins plugs his latest blockbuster, the Silence of the Lambs sequel, Hannibal.

It’s ten years now since Hopkins, then 54, finally conquered Hollywood and won an Oscar for his unforgettable portrayal of flesh-eating serial killer Hannibal ‘The Cannibal’ Lecter. Career-wise, it’s been a good ten years – a decade of big salaries, bigger movies and a well-deserved place in the pantheon of Great Film Stars. Yet the mere fact that Hopkins, now 63, has apparently forsaken his golden theatrical past to concentrate on the viper’s nest that is Hollywood has led some to speculate that, like Burton before him, Hopkins has opted to ‘go Hollywood’ in some style.

Fifty years ago, Richard Burton went to California to make My Cousin Rachel. He thought of it as ‘a raid on Hollywood’: go there, make some crappy movies, earn an obscene amount of cash and then rush back home to Britain with his booty. He wanted to show off to his mates while, at the same time, proving he hadn’t sold out. History shows it didn’t quite work that way. Burton succumbed to the lure of Tinseltown and its riches. He loved the parties, the limos, the glamour and the prestige. Most of all, he loved the women. It was all a far cry from the family home he shared with eight other children in the South Wales valley village of Pontrydyfen.

True, it wasn’t exactly the same for Hopkins. Unlike Burton, who conquered Hollywood before he was 40 and became a living legend around the same time, Hopkins has done it in stages. Yet he now admits Burton, who died in 1984, aged 58, was a substantial influence on him as a child growing up as a baker’s son in Port Talbot – a town just a handful of miles from Burton’s birthplace.

“Years ago, I met Richard Burton and got his autograph. I was walking down the hill afterwards and Richard passed in his car. His wife waved at me and I remember thinking ‘I want to get out of here. I want to become what he is’. Not because we were both from Wales, although I love Wales, but because I was so limited as a child at school. I was lonely, because I wasn’t very bright at school, and I thought becoming an actor would do the trick for me. Of course it’s not quite like that.”
So has he achieved everything he ever wanted: Oscar, knighthood, adulation, movie star status and massive celebrity? He’s certainly eclipsed Burton’s success. “Everything has happened beyond my wildest dreams. It’s luck, good fortune, destiny, whatever. I’ve done everything I’ve needed to do,” he says.

Just two years ago the tabloids on both sides of the Atlantic were filled with reports of Hopkins’ imminent retirement. The unpredictable and mercurial star had apparently spoken out on the set of Titus, the gory movie version of Shakespeare’s play, saying he’d had enough of films. It sent the Press into a frenzy, but now, as then, Hopkins claims he was misquoted. He deals with the matter calmly, though with just a hint of exasperation bubbling beneath the surface.

“I told another actor I was tired and I was going to retire, but I meant it as a joke. The Press picked it up. I intended taking a year off, but then I was offered a small part in Mission: Impossible – 2, with Tom Cruise. I went to Australia and did ten days in that, and then went back to Los Angeles, where I tended the flowers in the garden, walked on the beach, climbed the mountains.” His eyes seem almost dewy at the thought. “Something did happen to me in that year. I relaxed and pondered what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. I had a physical, which was something I’d never bothered with, and changed my diet. Now I’m in good shape. I’ve done two films since then, the most recent being Hannibal.”

Hopkins appears to want to be able to have his cake and eat it. Like Burton, who largely gave up the stage to concentrate on movies, his choices seem to vary with his mood. Right now he is in Movie Star mode – theatre seems to be the last thing on his mind. Again, the comparisons with Burton rear their various heads. Burton made only two appearances on stage in the ‘70s and ‘80s – a triumphant Broadway run in Peter Shaffer’s Equus, in 1976, and a critically mauled re-teaming with old flame Elizabeth Taylor in Private Lives the year before his death. Similarly, Hopkins appears tired of the theatre, though his answer is peppered with laughter.

“I started in the theatre, many years ago, and I enjoyed it, but I don’t have the discipline or tenacity [to do it anymore]. I do admire Judi Dench, or Ian McKellen, and all those wonderful actors. I don’t have the courage, and I’m a bit of a philistine. I like the good life. I like being a beach bum in Malibu. I’m no good at going in night after night. Doing Wednesday afternoons in the Waterloo Road sends me into suicidal depression. There’s something rather sad about it. Someone said to me recently ‘So we’ve lost you to the theatre, have we?’ and I said ‘Yeah, I’m afraid so.’ I always get so depressed, and I don’t know why. It’s not a bad job, but actors are so bloody pathetic that if they see two empty seats on the balcony they go…” – he mimes slashing his wrists. I’d rather spare myself that terrible, desperate despair. I’m not good at it. I’ve got a whole scenario of arriving at the stage door and going ‘Any mail?’ ‘No.’ Then there’s a breezy ‘Hello!’ from somebody as I hang my coat up. I just want to die, knowing I’ve got to do another 100 performances of King fucking Lear. It’s like ‘Oh God! What am I doing with my life?’ I can’t face it. I’d rather be a beach bum.”

Thus, we arrive at Hannibal. Not too long ago, Hopkins was telling anyone who’d listen that he would never reprise the character because some moviegoers had begun to empathise with Lecter as a heroic character instead of the psychopath he clearly was. Then rumours began to fly about notoriously slow author Thomas Harris’ third Lecter book. When Hannibal finally hit the shelves, the book’s gruesome finale – which I won’t spoil here - put many off turning the project into another blockbuster movie.

Hopkins’ fellow Oscar-winner, Jodie Foster, bailed out, closely followed by original director Jonathan Demme. That didn’t worry tenacious Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis. Having forked out $9 million for the film rights, he was determined to see the film on screen. With Foster and Demme out of the picture, he hired Britisher Ridley Scott to direct and replaced Foster with acclaimed flame-haired US actress Julianne Moore. That just left Hopkins. But Hopkins had undergone a sea change. He no longer cared about the apparent negative reaction to Lecter, and made no demands on De Laurentiis, or scriptwriters David Mamet and Steven Zaillian, to alter the book’s memorably Grand Guignol ending. Instead, he stepped back into Lecter’s shoes willingly.

“I think we all love the bogeyman,” he says with conviction. “We’re fascinated by the dark, shadowy characters in literature, like Iago, the Phantom of the Opera, Richard III. They are archetypes, and Lecter is an archetype. In pure Joseph Campbell terms, so is Clarice. She’s a hero-warrior in the wonderful form of the female. That makes it very erotic, and very challenging. I think that’s the attraction for audiences.” He laughs readily when he recalls the people who stop him in the street and say ‘Give me that look. You know, THAT look,’ while his eyes crinkle up with fun as he utters the immortal ‘Hello, Clarice’ line which sends a chill down the spine. Hopkins is having fun. It’s as if, finally, he’s conquered his many demons and is content. Certainly, his apparent acceptance of the crown that was once Burton’s bodes well.

Since he’s in a good mood. I ask what makes him laugh. I already know the answer: Tommy Cooper. “Carry On films make me laugh, and British comedians like Morecambe and Wise, and Tommy Cooper,” replies this most unserious of serious actors. He slips into an uncannily accurate Tommy Cooper impression, complete with rumbling laugh, and starts to giggle.
“I’d better stop,” he says, grinning, his eyes crinkling up again.
I’m laughing hard. “No, carry on. Please.”

‘Tommy Cooper’ launches into another routine.
“I was sittin’ there, wiv my wife, and I said ‘Oh dear, oh dear’. She said ‘Wassamatter?’ I said ‘I’m feelin’ ‘omesick.’ She said ‘You are at ‘ome.’ I said ‘I know. I’m sick of it.’”
The rumbling laugh erupts again. All thoughts of Hannibal are forgotten. He’s in his element, and so am I.
Leave ‘em laughing. That’s the trick…

• This article originally appeared in the Yorkshire Post (Feb 16 2001)