Anthony Hopkins, the reluctant actor – archive, 1969
The Welsh actor Anthony Hopkins, once a stalwart member of the National Theatre, is the latest recruit to the ranks of film spy anti-heroes. He is shortly to emerge as Philip Calvert, Alistair MacLean’s new character, described variously as “the first under-water spy” and “a slightly ribald Secret Service agent.” The first film in this series which the publicity machine confidently predicts will “Out-Bond Bond” – called When Eight Bells Toll – is presently being filmed on the Island of Mull.
Tony Hopkins is 31 and the future seems bright indeed, considering that he was playing a walk-on part at the Old Vic only four years ago. But, although he admits he would be a fool not to be delighted at such a starring role, something in him is balking from enjoying the prospect of fame. He confesses to being in a very strange frame of mind rather than in a state of euphoria. He is, in fact, going through an old transition stage and is finding it difficult to adjust to the fact that although he still feels like an ordinary person just doing his job. Others have already dubbed him a star and consequently expect him to behave like one. For a start, he doesn’t look like a star, unless as a boxer or a footballer, and not being able to be himself is unnerving him. Gloomily he tells of how he greeted an electrician on the film set the other day in a friendly fashion only to have the man turn on him and say “Don’t patronise me boy.”
Sitting brooding in a Scottish hotel lounge, knees drawn up to his chin, Hopkins said glumly that he had never made so much money nor been so neurotic. “The thing that annoys me is that everybody takes acting so damn seriously. Whereas all I take seriously is the actual work in hand, which is what I am paid to do. Once an actor gets all intense about it, I think he’s had it. One needs to be able to stand outside oneself and have a good laugh about it. What I can’t come to terms with is that with me, acting is just a job, and I can’t see why it matters what colour pyjamas I wear or what I look for in a woman. I keep getting asked that kind of question and I despair because it is all so unimportant. What is important is not even my talent, but energy, production, and sheer hard work. Those are the things that go towards making a great actor.”
Before he made his mark as Richard the Lionheart, in the film A Lion In Winter, Hopkins was very happy at the National Theatre. His admiration lies very much with the older school of actors, the ones who do not theorise a play out of existence. At the Old Vic he rose to roles like Andrey in The Three Sisters and was much feted for his rendering of Andrey, the country wench, in the all-male As You Like It.
His great moment came when he stood in for Olivier in Dance of Death and got an overwhelming reception for his performances. He recalls “I suffered from chronic nausea for days and went through three sweat shirts in the first act, whereas Olivier would come off without a bead of sweat. It gave me a taste of my inadequacy and an even greater admiration for Olivier. It also gave me a taste of blood; I minded terribly when I stopped playing it. I had always wanted to play that kind of part so I wanted to show off and do it again and again.
He was sad to leave the National which he did partly to make a film but partly because he was running the risk, in staying, of standing in line with many other excellent actors.
“Tyrone Guthrie once said that any actor who has not played five of the great roles by 30 is only a working actor. I’m 31 and I haven’t really played any of them but I still want to be a BIG actor and do them. I would like to play Hamlet, of course, but I would also like to play Claudius again, under different circumstances.”
Last time he played Claudius, to Nicol Williamson’s Hamlet in the Tony Richardson production he says it poisoned his mind – “Richardson and I did not see eye to eye. I nearly lost my mind when he said: ‘And what piece of genius is Mr Hopkins going to bring to rehearsal today?’ I hate all this ‘did Hamlet sleep with Ophelia?’ type of theatre. All that theorising by over-intellectual directors is dehydrating actors. All that playing cricket before rehearsal to get the correct reflexes – I think it stinks.”
Tony Hopkins is a doer rather than a talker. A very workmanlike actor whose anger at the system smacks of the anger of last decade, yet it is rather refreshing. He protests a lot, but it isn’t an empty protest. Why, though, one wants to ask, is he an actor at all? “Acting is a third rate art. We are all over paid and over publicised. I hate actors but I love acting. I get ashamed with myself for doing it. I know I ought to be doing something else. If I was honest I’d say I like it because I’m vain, I’m comfortable, I like money and attention, but really I hate the whole set-up. I am taking the line of least resistance in doing films and it makes me feel like a con-man. When I think about how my parents slaved all their lives in a bakery for peanuts it just seems too easy. And that seems wrong somehow.”
This is an edited version.