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Swank in the Arts number 134. Swank in the Arts number 134. Swank in the Arts number 134. Good evening. I'm Patsy Swank. Anthony Hopkins has been one of my favorite actors
for longer than I have known his name. Over a period of what must have been several years, I had become aware that a great many very diverse performances were the work of one man Anthony Hopkins. Nobody seemed to know much about him. Little has been written except for good reviews and so it was a special pleasure to do some direct research when Anthony Hopkins came to Dallas in connection with the release of his new 20th Century Fox film Magic. Mr. Hopkins, were you just too busy to give interviews all those times or how is it that they're so little written about your background? Well I suppose coming from England there isn't a great publicity movement associated with the entertainment or the acting profession and I think we tend to
underplay it a little you know. Ask where to America and I came to America four years ago and I've been sort of reticent. I suppose it hasn't really been by choice, by conscious choice, it's the way things were and then along came the film Magic and a very close friend of mine who's in publicity advised me that I think it's time you started doing some publicity and I balked at that idea. I thought no I didn't want to do that. I mean I can't do that. I can't go around promoting myself but I thought why not? Why not? It's a film I'm proud of and I'm very pleased with the film and I'm indebted to Richard Edinburgh who directed it and Joseph Levine who produced it and it's part of the job now. I enjoy and in fact I've become involved in the post-production of the film not heavily involved but watching the music being scored and so on and so forth and now the promotion tour that I'm on it's fascinating seeing the market research that's involved in releasing
a movie it's marvelous it's fascinating it just makes me realize that the actor is the tip of the iceberg because there's so much genius behind it all. I mean the work of the editor and musicians and market researchers you know it's a kind of humbling experience in the way and it gets everything in perspective and it's very healthy for me to see this because it's a kind of mild ego buster you know. What interested you in the theatre in the first place? Do you come from an acting family? No, really I became an actor because I had nothing better to do because I didn't have much choice. At school I was a slow learner slow-grower I didn't know what they were talking about and I consequently I had no future about the age of 17 I stumbled or wandered into this profession by accident I joined the YMCA and I wasn't the joiner I was a kind of lone wolf I guess and I was
shy and introvert and there was an amateur acting group there and I joined and I suddenly felt comfortable being an actor. And I started to seriously pursue the acting profession and I suppose an acting career when I joined the Royal Academy in London 1961 to my surprise I won a scholarship and much to my surprise I mean a constant state of surprise that I'm in this profession but I enjoy it now I've learned over the last few years to accept more you know accept that I am an actor it's the only thing I can do well and I'm having a wonderful life. What were your early experiences? I know that you went into the Royal Theatre did you work primarily in classic repertoire or in contemporary plays before you started films and television what were you doing? Yes well I went into the repertoire theatre and I it was a hotspot really of all kinds of plays from Shakespeare to Sean O'Casey and Sing and I played the playboy of the Western world at the right age
and so on and so on. I had the good fortune to end up in the national theatre with under Lawrence Livia he was then directing the national theatre artistic director the national theatre and I worked there on and off for about five years with Lawrence Livia and I still wasn't a join I still am still not easy in large companies and with long contacts I like to feel free I'm a sort of minister I guess I get my back enough I go but I'm indebted to Lawrence Livia and his wife Joan Plarright and the formidable training because Livia really is the supreme disciplinary involved I mean his own discipline is awesome to behold and yet I think one of the most powerful talents I've ever seen and been close to and I must admit I stole unashamedly from him I watched him I watched him like a hawk he's aimed and I wanted to absorb what he was offering as an actor and he directed me in two plays
and he gave me some good advice and so I've but I've always been on my own as an actor you know I've almost I've never stuck around companies for too long and never felt easy. Well did you move then into films from from theatre or into television I'm not sure about the pronouncement? Well yes what happened at the national theatre was about the early 70s when I I was offered television a lot of television like I did more in peace with BBC television and I think there was shown on PBS over here yes indeed it was and a wide range of parts and the extraordinary thing was that I and I was lucky because they cast me in parts older than myself and wide range of rather disturbed people men who were always searching for this that near the pier and one piece of as a surgeon then the first time I I suppose on an international scale I was given the part of Dr Kellner in QB7 which was shown on the American television
and I was stuck behind a beard and glasses and grey hair and that so people thought I was about 60 years of age which is nice compliment but it's rather awkward for me because I wanted to play my own age and finally gradually over the last few years I've been able to cross the line and now I'm beginning to play part in fact younger than myself which is nice and I'm pleased because I've played so many disturbed me but they were marvelous parts to play how did you come to Equus John Dexter the director of the national theatre at the time offered it to me some years ago and I couldn't do it for some reason at the national theatre so he asked me if I would like to do it on Broadway and I did in 1974-75 and it was a sort of turning point of my life because I was very involved with the analysis of parts I used to analyse and analyse and I'm glad I did all that I wouldn't have missed doing it but John said amazing stop analysing just do it you know so I did and I made an amazing discovery that in fact I can do it a lot of my work without
over-analysis you know and I but all the the training that put myself through the analysis of the part the breakdown of part throughout subtext and so on so forth the I'm talking about really is basically the Stanislavski system it's still with me I suppose because when in doubt I go back but I took me a long time to learn to trust my intuition and trust instinct but I still tend to want to break the parts down and I do I break down into its pieces and bits and pieces and so what Stanislavski called the units or you know and but I trust more my intuition I let it ride through me the analysis has already been done and it's already back in there yes I guess that it's really a technique I know it's a bad word technique sometimes people don't like the word but it is called a psychophysical technique whatever it is a technique of opening up I feel that analysis tends to close in you know and I want to open up that's only my theatre that's
only my opinion so I feel more openness now than I've ever felt how do you pick a script what elements do you look for well sometimes I may have chosen wisely and sometimes unwisely I it's a difficult question to answer I it's usually an intuitive decision if I start thinking about it too much I know that I'm going to miss it I it's an intuitive decision I can tell within about the first ten pages usually if it's for me and if it's not for me and I don't know how I can't intellectualize it I just go with a kind of that fashionable word gut feeling I suppose and follow my nose follow my instinct and sometimes I've been wrong or you know but I don't really believe there are mistakes because things that I've regretted doing it's been a chain of cause and effect and I can't say I've honestly regretted doing I've regretted one or two things I've done
but I've chosen because I feel comfortable with the character and something that fascinates me about a character and when the character emerges after I've prepared the things I think they come around and these sort of invisible like invisible partners because I sense that there's an invisible partner with me when I'm working after a certain period of time and then two images seem to merge and then I become and but I don't mean it in a terrible doctor Jacqueline hide wrench sense of the way but I kind of merging and I can't explain it and I and I avoid explaining myself I avoid analyzing it because I I'll spoil it but I sense that you know there's emerging of two different natures and after all I suppose you know that is just the actor's technique because we all carry with ourselves hamlets and ophelias and desdemonas and nothels and keipatos where all those essences we're all that Shakespeare dreamed up maybe that's the reason that they are so diverse because yes you're not a tight cast actor no there's not is there really a Hopkins
part well yes they're all Hopkins well actually you see I there's an identity in all of them I guess I I don't want to make it sound terribly heavy but I in a way when I was doing magic magic really is about a a venture-liquist magician who is obsessed with perfectionism and is lonely and on the outside and he cannot talk he cannot communicate and he has the only means of communication is with this dummy this doll called fats and in a way there's I didn't analyze this during I didn't I wasn't aware of this when I was doing the the film but afterwards somebody asked me in Chicago last week in fact they said was there a comparison in it was there a parallel in your own life and I I remember when I was at school I was very much on the outside and I I developed a repertoire of jokes and impersonations and through my formative years I I kept this repertoire going of impersonations I became billions of impersonating people it was my only way of bridging
this sort of gap and in a way fats represents in solid form what was going on in my own life so I didn't have to make that terrible sort of quantum leap you know it was passing past love me and I must say that I I find acting in many ways get it is easy for me a lot of it seems to be common sense and you know and when in doubt I go back and I double check all the time the only thing when the only time it doesn't become disease when when it's working with if I haven't done the preparation of a director is unsure of himself the wonderful thing about working with Richard Atmer a director on magic is that he was aware all the time of the technical demands and the technical responsibility and really took me by the hand from point A to point Z and the bad days when I couldn't remember how we got through it but there's no mystique I really want to stress that I don't find there's any mystique in acting at all I mean I know many actors
make a mystique of it many directors make a mystique there's no mystique it's a kind of technique for me that's only my opinion well this might be a good time to look at a clip from magic we have one can we see that what happens next well we reel them in slow the same kind of low key build up we gave Steve Martin last year I'm not letting you in New York the workloads to make an ideal so I just stay here no first I'd like to book in a small lounge in Vegas for the experience then the area talk shows you know Tom Snyder my Douglas all leading to Carson and if he asks you to come back I think he will that should do it so you keep motor mouth there in line when I work on them truly at the network should take five maybe six months now when I buy a free lunch I got four seasons in New York you'll know you're home free sound okay
yes sir you're a good kid go okay hey you know what I think I want to do you think we're gonna be a star one thing about the the dummy fats that sort of bewildered me was how did you how did you work with him was there a soundtrack of your own voice how did you work back and forth with the dummy well I learned the both parts as if I were learning one which indeed is what it was meant to be you know cocaine fatso one so I learned the entire part before I started filming and in the learning I mean I have a system of learning lines I mean speaking absolutely technically
I mean I learned the lines over and over and over so that I on the theory that my brain is computer which I guess it is and by packing the information into the mind or into the brain the subconscious is going to take over by him I really am getting too deep but I learn the lines let's say I learn what I have to learn as efficiently as I can and out of that usually comes some strange area where like the voice of fats came I listened to Don Rickles' records for some time but I was trying to get rhythm and then I had to learn the cards and the eventual equation so I learned the basics with a man called Dennis Arwood who was the ventriloquist who helped me on the film so I learned the ventriloquism myself I learned the basics and then I learned beyond the basics and I did most of the ventriloquism myself and when there were areas where
became impossible because there's a very speed I did that to a voice off of an actor who spoke the lines to me from off camera we worked together there was a man called Patrick Watkins worked with me very closely and we worked with rhythm you know because I wanted him to get the rhythm like learned because I wanted to get a special sort of rhythm for fats but primarily on the frame we were hearing your voice at the time that it was said yeah that scene you just always made that's interesting I didn't realize that I had a sense that somehow you were playing against a tape or something no that was me and the funny the strangest thing was on the very first day the first time I ever had to record with fats to actually speak with fats was a day when we were very rushed and I didn't have time to think about it and they did it in one or two shots I want two takes and I said that's it and I said that's it I don't you want to do really take you know that's it I said well how was it it was fine I said I didn't have time to prepare
so well that's it and the days I was in trouble was when I thought about it too much so there's a lesson in that for me anyway it's not a thing too much to you know just do it I get on with it you know what is your life like outside the theater is it involved with the theater is it separate it's very separate not isolated but separate I mean I I'm not anti social I my friends are outside the theater outside show business all if they then we have two close friends and he's in his wife involved in publicity that's all but I find being with actors of a long period of time very boring except when I have to work with them you know on a professional basis but I I have to switch off I I don't take the work home anymore and I used to and my life became impossible because I could I simply couldn't relax and how I insist that I relax myself my wife is a very
good team I um we live a very peaceful life and strings living in Los Angeles you know the center of the cinema and movie business I relax I run I go to the gymnasium I meditate I read I play the piano I go for walks and live a beautifully dull life that's a wonderful life I love it and that way I find that I I I'm able to produce more energy when I come to work tremendous amount of energy can build up you know I get restless I get restless and I want sometimes I'm itchy to go to work and sometimes I just have to sit still and I say just be still and relax well it all seems to have moved in a a very precise rhythm for you your whole career is there a direction that you want it to go that it hasn't taken yet I have dreams and ambitions my main ambition is to be around the business for a long time for that is the film business
the act of theatre of the hour theatre and film I have a dream that one day I will have a theatre and all my dreams seem to come true you know what we pray for we get if it's right for us and I want to give back what I've taken it from this business and that is I want to give back to younger actors I love talking to I love seminars I love talking maybe I like the sound of my voice too much but I love talking to actors who are coming into the profession and I like to make it simple because I want to release the sense of fun and the sense of joy that I've had from my own work from working with other actors because I sometimes forget and I used to in my own I've been in recent past forget that I was in that I was you know one is it's a gift it's a gift challenges a gift and all I have to be is a good caretaker of it and I want to in a way be I want to share my experiences you know of my my my work and people seem to get
something from that and that's what I'd like to do I think I'm going towards an area where one day I would like to direct and I would like to be a director of my own theatre here in America and not in the role of Lawrence Levy as artistic director because I think that's too much responsibility I'm principally an actor but I would like to direct because I believe that director should be compassionate should be loving and sadly I think that many directors who need an acting course it is acting is an interpret it's an interpretive art but like all art it is about love it is about life humanity and growth and human education and one cannot do it with tyrants you know and I've worked with some tyrants and I've been a tyrant myself I've been tyrannical with myself and I don't want to do that anymore and I don't want to share I don't want to be part of that system anymore and those systems do exist and it's frightening and destructive
but that's interesting because that is the traditional ambition of all of the great English actress of the past as I remember my theatre history to have the to produce and to direct in in their own theatres yes is that perhaps in your blood but you want to do it over here well I've had a strange I've had a unique career in a way and I can't the only credit I can take is that I've shown up in time you know I've shown up and that learned my lines and I've done what I've had to do but the rest of it I can't take any credit forward seems that I've been moved and it's a mystery to me and I don't analyse the mystery I just get out of my own way much of the time as much as I can and I try to keep out of my own way and let it happen and I feel that it's going I feel that I'm going to head in that direction because the most extraordinary miracles have happened in my own life and amazing miracles quiet miracles they've happened I've found myself in places that I've dreamed that I would be in you know and
it's like one is drawn inexorably to one's own goals without having to move very much except I have to do certain basic patterns and certain photo certain preparations and just sit back and enjoy the ride and I've just lately I'm now growing to accept that in my own life you know to accept myself and accept life as it is well headlet is in your future I think you told me yes immediate future that's going to be where that's a hamlet is in the South Coast Reptory company in Costa Mason Southern California near San Diego June of next year I it's on the card at the moment anyway I'm going to direct it and play it and it haunted me for three years and now it's filtered down into a same tangible form and I've got it on paper I've taken three years to get it on paper and I've almost finished it and I'm very pleased with it and and there I go next year do you have some interest perhaps in some of the regional theaters of America they are growing so strongly yes I visited Cincinnati Playhouse and I haven't had time to to go around but I want
want one day to make a tour of the theaters and I'd love to I'd love to work in many of the theaters here that's is that is one of my main dreams is to work in the theaters throughout America I'd love to go on a road show and a road a road company I've got a lot to learn and I want to share what I learned as I go along you know what's next on your immediate schedule well not I don't know but next year I'm in film I'm going to play Gandhi Mahatma Gandhi for Richard Attenborough it's been his dream for 15 years and finally all the combinations are coming together I'm getting the script this afternoon in fact so I'm going to go off to India at the end of next year for eight months and so I'm going to prepare I've got to lose about 20 more pounds weight and change color and I'm looking forward to it very much if you had if you had to make a choice could you between film and theater or must it be inextrable band in your life it's the way it is at the moment I don't seem to have
it may sound cornice I don't have any choice I have choice but I believe I'm exactly what I am at the right moment right on the queue at the moment I'm exactly what I'm meant to be I've given up doing what other people tell me I should do I've been haunted by other people's should and I've been eliminating that from my life I'm doing what I believe I want to do what I feel comfortable in doing and I don't do what people tell me I should do anymore I've lived with that enough and I want to go back to the theater I want to get a fair balance I've been looking for balance in my own life a long time and I'm beginning to find the balance in my own life and I try to relax as much as I can I try to have a relative peace of mind and I don't want to go back I want to go forward you know I want to grow as a person and I want to enjoy my life and I enjoy at the moment I'm enjoying myself I'm enjoying myself as I've never enjoyed myself before and I'm enjoying the success of magic I'm enjoying myself as a film actor I've learned a great deal from films and I can take
that back into the theatre and vice versa you know the value of the my experience of the theatre has been invaluable to me as a film actor the discipline of the theatre and I want to go back there I want to get an open balanced life as an actor and if you could look ahead 10 years where would you like to be here in America with my own theatre my with the family we have no children at the moment and living a peaceful life living exactly as I am now I hope you get your wish thank you thank you so much for coming thank you enjoyed it so much thank you so far thank you thank you for being with us good night you
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Series
Swank in The Arts
Episode Number
133
Episode
Anthony Hopkins interview
Producing Organization
KERA
Contributing Organization
KERA (Dallas, Texas)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip-ff5d763f3f4
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Description
Episode Description
Mr. Hopkins also speaks about his future plans for owning his own theatre company and his life as an actor.
Episode Description
Interview with Anthony Hopkins speaking about his new film, Magic.
Series Description
“Swank in the Arts” was KERA’s weekly in-depth arts television program.
Broadcast Date
1978-11-22
Created Date
1978-11-20
Asset type
Episode
Genres
Interview
Talk Show
Topics
Performing Arts
Film and Television
Subjects
Performing Arts; Acting on Film and Stage
Media type
Moving Image
Duration
00:31:03.488
Embed Code
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Credits
Director: Parr, Dan
Executive Producer: Howard, Brice
Interviewee: Hopkins, Anthony
Interviewer: Swank, Patsy
Producer: Swank, Patsy
Producing Organization: KERA
AAPB Contributor Holdings
KERA
Identifier: cpb-aacip-e2478e4e975 (Filename)
Format: 2 inch videotape: Quadruplex
If you have a copy of this asset and would like us to add it to our catalog, please contact us.
Citations
Chicago: “Swank in The Arts; 133; Anthony Hopkins interview,” 1978-11-22, KERA, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 29, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-ff5d763f3f4.
MLA: “Swank in The Arts; 133; Anthony Hopkins interview.” 1978-11-22. KERA, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 29, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-ff5d763f3f4>.
APA: Swank in The Arts; 133; Anthony Hopkins interview. Boston, MA: KERA, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-ff5d763f3f4