December 31 - Anthony Hopkins about his acting philosophy.

Tony, how do you align your mind with the mind of your character so that you can trust that your thoughts are the thoughts you ought to be thinking, or does that make any sense at all? Well it makes sense to ask the question, but you can't, it's impossible to become the character because you cannot, it's impossible. What's your name? John. John, John. You're John playing Hamlet, or whatever you play. You're John. To actually believe that you've got to become the part, that's bad acting when you try to become the part, because you can't, because you're only you anyway, and the part is just a part of you. What do you do instead? Lorette Taylor, she did The Glass Menagerie, people are mesmerized by the reality, the realism of her performance, and she said, I just listen to what the other actor's saying. Once you listen, it's like a tennis game. I love to get up and do it, instead of talking about it. I'm very, I'm a little manic, I'm a little, you know, I get overcharged sometimes, and so I would rather put it into the performance, instead of talking to sleep. I think music has a great effect on everyone, because it's such an abstract art. It has a powerful effect on me, because you know, we go through a life guarding ourselves, and I do, you know, because we all do that, we guard ourselves, you know, men don't cry, men don't show emotions, but, and all that stuff, but it's funny, I just, the words and music really have a powerful, cataclysmic effect on one, I believe. How about Sinatra? Ah, well, the greatest. Did you see him? Do you ever know him? I saw him, I met him in Vegas at Caesar's Palace years ago. The charisma. What's amazing to me about him, and they're true about others, and I think you do, is the skill, which you recognize you have, and he understood it, he would go and swim underwater, and do things like that, to improve, improve his lung capacity, you know. There always is, it seems to me, this is sort of what we were talking about, this marrying of skill with some sense of wanting to do it really well. I mean, you have it, and Olivier had it in a different way. Just the skill alone will not take you there. No. As long as Olivier once said, he said that acting is the sugar pill to knowledge, and I've learned sleight of hand, I've learned ventriloquism, and I got paid for it. Well, I was so in awe of working with him. He said, always risk, go out on the edge of the limb of the tree, go out even further until you fall. He had no time for people who were lazy, and he'd say, he'd say, stay in training, stay fit, and he used to lecture us all, he said, stay fit, you've got to be healthy, if you're not healthy, you're finished, he said, you've always got to be strong and fit. He also, there's the story that he told you, you were a little bit tough on directors. Yeah. You know, I mean, it was during that period of your life in which you were raging, and he said, what, ease up? What did he tell you? Did he tell you to ease up, or? He said, you can't go on like this. He said, who are you fighting? I said, no, he said, you're fighting yourself. He said, then it's a dead end. He said, you can't go on fighting yourself. He said, you'll destroy everything that you've got in your life. He said, you're crazy. And it was then I left the National Theatre and walked away, and a few years later, I met him, we were doing a film together, Bridge Too Far, another Richard Attenborough movie, and I saw him, he said, I'm glad you're better. He said, that's the first time, we shall can. He said, I'm glad you got through your problems, whatever they were. See, I've learned to respect directors more than I ever did, because you think, well, they're the guys, they know what they want to do, and people like Spielberg and Donaldson and Hobart and Oliver Stone, they know what the movie's about. Actors just have to show up. If somebody told me 10, 15 years ago that that change would come, in my attitude, I'd say never, not in a million years, but you get older, that's the great advantage of getting older. It's a whole principle of life, if you're relaxed, chances are good things will come to you, if you're uptight and, you know, I don't think, I think you frighten things away if you're constantly aggression and uptight. I can say that I'm always very insecure, as we all are. Oh yeah, I do. People are surprised when they see me in young actors, they say, you're insecure? I say, yeah, you bet you, you're as I am. So how can you be insecure? I said, well, that's being human, that's being alive. I feel uneasy, and I don't know, I'd like to get rid of that feeling, I don't know, it's going to take a little time maybe, but I know that probably the answer is in myself, somewhere, you know, it's my attitude that I have to change. It's a strange feeling, but especially in the acting profession, I don't know what it is. It's all probably a hangover from that feeling that I didn't belong, you know. You know, it'll probably take a long time to change those ideas of mine, because they're probably only my ideas, there's probably nothing wrong at all, there's nothing, the negative is probably in myself. I'm sure it is, I know it is. I've got one thing that helps me through, I say, today is the tomorrow I was so worried about yesterday. But what I, you know, I go back to my childhood, my lonely childhood, and I couldn't communicate, so I had a series of jokes and, you know, a repertoire of impersonation and mimicry and all that, and that made me fit. I was able to bridge the gap, you know, but I still felt a little uneasy, because it wasn't, you know, it was synthetic, I wasn't being me, I was being all these different people, and I guess that's why I came into the acting profession, but now I guess I'm in it for the right reason, because it's not a therapy for me anymore, as I think it was, I don't know what it was, I don't know why I became an actor, I know I am. All that rage and all the anger, that's the wonderful thing about being an actor, because you can play all these great things. I've had a wonderful time playing all these complex parts, they have been marvellous, because they've helped me in a way, they've, I suppose, filtered down into my subconscious mind and give me an enormous, I've gained from playing them. But I tend in my life to be closed off a bit, I don't like expressing emotions, so as an actor I'm able to express it, and it's much healthier to be out there and give out and express yourself. I can actually get home, I don't have to spend time hanging around the theatre, trying to prove myself, gaining people's approval. When I finished Equus in New York, I mean, the people would stand up and applaud, and then I'd have to go over to the bar and get more approval, because I was addicted to approval, I've been an addictive person, I'm addicted to approval, I'm addicted to people's applause. And there's, it's a nightmare, I think that's a nightmare, you know, and I've had to learn little bit by little bit, and it's a slow process, I have to guard against my own ego, I have to, without being tough on myself, I don't keep myself in a tight rein now, a little bit at a time I have to just let go and realise that their approval, your approval, isn't important. My own approval of myself is more important, and then if that fits, then the world will come, you know, then the world's approval will follow suit, generally, but I can't please everyone. But I used to try to please everyone, you see, and if somebody didn't like what I did, I mean, that would drive me insane. I couldn't sleep at night trying to please that one person, that one person who was probably fast asleep, you know, while I was awake pacing the apartment, you know, wondering how I could get their approval. And I believed that he was responsible for my very soul and for my very talent, and I didn't realise that it was a gift, and that nobody was responsible for it, only me. All I have to be is a good caretaker, you know, just a good caretaker, and that lets me off the hook. Doubts, I have sometimes doubts and sometimes I don't have doubts. Well, of course you have doubts, that's being human. I don't know, I don't know anything. That's the greatest spiritual ethic of all, to have known nothing. But do you think he had doubts? Of course he did, any intelligent human being would have doubts. In doubt lives piety, in doubt lives humility. If you have certainty, you're dead. Certainty destroys people. Hitler destroyed 40 million people because he was certain. Stalin destroyed millions of his own people. Certainty, because he knew. No one knows, and the greatest way to live is to have, be living constantly in doubt. All I know is that there's a bigger mystery in my life than I can even comprehend. I don't know what I am, I don't know where I came from, I don't know where I'm going. But what I do know is that I know nothing. Now I am completely clueless, because I've lived to such an age that I realise that my knowledge is meaningless. Of myself I am nothing, that we are not special. Once you begin to believe in terminal uniqueness, absolute specialness, then your life is not worth living, because we are not special. We're just ashes at the end. We live in such a world of such evil, of such ignorant, bubble thinking, political correctness. We all have to have an opinion about something. People say, what do you think? I don't know, I'm clueless, I'm just an actor. How did you come upon Stanislavski's approach to the craft of acting? I think it happened while you were at RADA, of all places. Well, I read Stanislavski when I was a young kid at Cardiff College of Music and Drama. You were also dyslexic, were you? I suppose I was, I suppose I am. Well, there are a lot of creative people that are dyslexic. Yes, I think I was. I was what would be branded as a poor student. I was called educationally way below the standard of my school. Because you had trouble reading? Reading. So I sat at the back of the classroom in a stupor of confusion. Not because I was different, I was living in a different world, in my mind. I couldn't figure anything out, and I didn't know what I was doing there. Looking back on it, I'm convinced that we are there for a reason, that everything is destiny. My so-called inability to learn was a great gift, because I've used that gift of whatever it was, lack, to push myself forward into life. Now I read so much. I read and read and read. I have my own personal method. But what I've simplified it now, and I absorb the text. I have this obsessive need to go over the text over and over and over. I do it 250 times. Not the entire script, but I just take what I have to do, because I want to be so sure that I know what I'm going to be doing. Literally 250 times? Oh, yeah. But it's a kind of magical, silly number I use. Not because I don't know it after 20 times, but something happens as I'm going through it. By knowing the text so well, you have all the reference, encyclopedic reference that you need. All the information is there in the text. I mean, I do some bit of research, but I don't find it necessary to go and live in a jail. I know some actors like to do that. But, you know, I don't know, that's fine. I respect that. But I find there's a shorter cut for me. You can try and figure out what he had for breakfast and so on, but it doesn't help you at all. It may help you in your imagination, but it doesn't get you there. All the information is there and what the action of the scene is, not what the emotion is, but what the action of the scene is. Maybe a simplistic way of doing it, but when I teach students or they ask me to help them, I say, just learn your lines. Learn it so well that you never have to worry. And then I go on the set and I feel relaxed. Once you're relaxed, you can be spontaneous, you can improvise within that text. You have a foundation. But you can relax and you can do whatever you want. You're so free. Then you get into the zone. I become very familiar with the nature of the person I'm going to play. So it's my Stanislavski approach to do it that way. What's in the script? Anthony McCartney wrote a very good script. I don't have to improve on it. I don't have to rewrite it. It's there. Actors want to rewrite everything because they're stupid, because they think they're cleverer than the writer. If you go with a good writer, you look at anything, that's it. Just show up on set and do it. I'm an actor and I know how to play them. And what I'd used was my instinct. The fun I get out of it is, the real fun is never knowing what's going to happen next. And even on stage, if you're repeating a performance, you're not quite sure what's going to happen next. And I think that's what you have to do with the other actors. Keep it fluid all the time. And also fresh. Yeah, it's difficult on stage to do that night after night, but it's something you can aim for. The great thing is to go on stage and give a fluent performance, improvise within that. And the chances are, if you're calm and if you can remove the ego as much as you can, then you're free to take off. Doing this television show, I used to be known for preparing constantly, knowing, which is the equivalent of learning the lines, to do that. And I did it, but at the same time, I understood the value of relaxation. So if I was tired and had to make a choice between preparing more or taking a nap before doing this, I'd always take... I learned to take the nap because it would just make me freer. Yes. And therefore, I could more likely call on whatever instincts there were to be more real and remember things. That's right. Then if I had come in exhausted, having overprepared, I might have more information, but I'd have less me. Yes, that's right. I suppose the only challenge was the question mark in my own mind when we started on Shadowlands was whether I had the emotional reserve for it because I hadn't used it. As my acting techniques have become more minimalist and more economical, which is something I've worked towards, or it has been working in me unconsciously. So when I came to Shadowlands, I thought, I wonder if I can do this, the big catharsis scene. I thought, I wonder if I'm ready. But there was a great director I worked with. He's a pretty savage director called John Dexter. He's gone now. He's dead. But he used to shout at me to stand still, hold it, and be economical. Lawrence Livia said the same thing when I was working at the Vic. He said, economize. Because if you hit the ceiling all the time, the audience gets dull. They may as well go to the pub and get drunk next door. So he said, don't show too much. Just contain, contain. But I never understood that. And as years have gone by, it's sort of beginning. It's happened for me. I understand that the less you show, the less is more. But you have to have the power or reserve inside. It's all in there. All the feelings, all the repressed feelings. Not my repressed, but it's all in there. But you don't have to act. You just let the audience take their journey with you. You let the audience do the work. The audience weeps for him. As the audience is frightened because of Hannibal Lecter. Not because I'm frightening, but because they frighten themselves. They think, what's he going to do next? You know, that's the game. That's the game of acting. Now, other actors might disagree with me. I mean, I know some actors who have to go through hell to get to the performance. Because that's the way they choose to do it. So maybe I'm a very shallow actor. I don't know. But I choose the other way. I prefer to just take the easy path. I just find it easier now to be still. But with Shadowlands, it was like a return for me. It's like going back and think, oh, I can go back to that area of my life. I can go back to this emotional reservoir and use it. But as we started the film, I could feel it. I could feel the power of it inside. It's such a great script. And in fact, Richard tends to be a little... He's very full of emotion himself. And he said, let's restrain. Let's hold back. And let's not show all this emotion yet until the great catastrophe. Does that mean you shot it, in a sense, as the film happens? No. No, so you had to show the emotion and then go backwards and forwards? But once you get the knack of it, once you get the technique of that, all you have to do is attune yourself to the changes. You know, you're filming out of sequence. Because Richard Attenborough, who's had such a long career as an actor, is in total control. Another scene when we were walking by the lake, which was... I don't know, for some reason it presented enormous difficulties in my mind or imagination. Because I believe that all problems are illusions anyway. And when they do exist, they're technical. And the wonderful thing is that Attenborough was in such charge, he was in such control, that he made it easy. He filmed in bits and pieces. He said, don't worry. Nothing can go wrong. And so I thought, well, I'm home and dry. And I was. If problems are illusions, is that an understanding that comes to one with maturity? If problems are illusions, why did you feel you had so many as a younger man? Well, because I've learned, or I'm learning, in the process of learning to live in the solution and not the problem anymore. I suppose I... The illusion that I was unique, the illusion that I was alone, which is the symptom of a vast ego, which can only be viewed from outer space, I suppose. I had a big ego problem. And I came to a point at one time, it was a slow kind of realization that I was a very self-destructive person. And that I was not unique. That I was not on the outside looking in. And that there were other people like me who felt uncomfortable and outside of life. And I think from about the age of four, I remember just feeling totally at ease. I thought everyone else may have been speaking Chinese or something, because I didn't know what they were talking about at school. And through the whole of my, you know, through most of my life. Until sort of recent years, when I came to America, after New York, after I finished Equus, and I realized that I was sort of running out of time. Because I was running wild, you know, and I was on the move. Until gradually, it was sort of explained to me through other people, by other people. And through, I think, a voice inside myself saying, there's nothing to fear, you know, live and accept life. I was too clever. And now I'm not clever anymore. I try to keep out of my own way, you know, as much as I can. Which has given me a sort of peace of mind. I mean, you know, when I get uptight, but it's all right. I know that there's no big deal anymore. Nothing is a big deal. I just showed up. I did a lot of preparation. All I have to do is be ready, I guess. I try to apply it through my life now. I just have to get ready, you know. I just have to do what is asked of me. And do as much as I can without driving myself insane. And I'm reminded of a conversation someone had with Paul Schofield. They were discussing magic in the theater. And Schofield's reply was, magic is no concern of ours. Our job in the theater is to get on with it. Yes. Is there room for magic in the theater, in your opinion? Or is your job to get on with it? To get on with it, and the magic takes place. All life is magical. It is magic, you see. Because we're the instruments. And all problems are technical. Once you can go through those problems without avoiding them or backing off from them, because, you know, it's like fear. You go through it. You go through the problem, confront it, and go through it. Then you have release. Stanislavski called it the plane of inspiration that takes off from the runway. The runway is the technique. The runway is the getting on with it. And the plane will take off. If on Tuesday night, however, it doesn't quite take off. It doesn't matter. You can't stop the plane and say, well, I'll go back because I don't feel it tonight. You get on with it technically. And then on Wednesday night, probably, it's going to take off again, as long as you're relaxed. But it really is, it's kind of being an automatic pilot. And I think it's, and it comes after experience. I think it comes, and I think I feel in the happy state of mind now that I have 15 years or 20 years of experience behind me. And I think it's used well. And there's a lot of positive out of all the anguish and the pain and discomfort. And there have been good times. There have been negative times. But Olivier said once, when he was directing Colin Blakely in June on the Peacock, and I was in June on the Peacock. And he said, you have to find the middle man. And Blakely said, what do you mean? He said, find the middle man, that ease of playing a character. And Blakely said, I only have until next week. And he said, you won't do it next week. It'll take you the next, the rest of your life. And it's really relaxing and letting go. You know, the booster that puts one into outer orbit, the aggression, the arrogance, and the ambition and all that, that's all very necessary. But there's a time when one has to let go. And I guess I'm in orbit. And all I have to do is rest assured that it's going to be OK and do what is required of me, you know, keep in practice, keep working. I'm going back to the theater. I want to go back to the theater. And I'm being kind to myself. That's all I can say, really. Then the magic happens. Schofield is right. You get on with it. John Dexter told me in New York, he said, just get on with it. Don't analyze. Do it. When John Dexter directed you in New York and in Equus, and you played almost, what was it, 360-something performances? Yeah, about that. Is it technique that sustained you on those evenings when you know there is no magic? Are you pushing the right buttons? Oh, yes. Yeah, yes. Sometimes it's Sisyphus going up the hill with a stone. It's sometimes very difficult. And it's easy to say, well, I must love the audience. Sometimes it's very difficult when people come in late with shopping bags and all that. It is difficult. But then my job is to get on with it and do the best I can. And the amazing thing is usually it's when they come back and say, what a wonderful performance, when you've been feeling really off. And technique, it comes back to technique. There's a negative side of perfectionism, in my nature, anyway. I can only speak for myself. There's a negative flaw, and there's a very dangerous trap. And I think one of the biggest killers is ego. And when it's the negative side of perfectionism, when one starts playing God, you know. And I mean literally. There is a killer. There is a lethal part of one's own ego. You see, the ego is the most dangerous part of us. Ego is the enemy. The ego. You have to have a little bit of it to keep moving. But you let that get out of control, then you have the power freak. You see them in the papers every day. The corruptness of corporations. The greed. The power. The belief that they're gods. And they all reach damnation in the end. But I'm not a religious person in that sense. I don't believe in the devil. But I believe we have to pay the price for our actions. And if I'm cruel or disrespectful to someone, I'm going to pay the price for it in the end. So I've learned over the years, slowly, and I'm a sinner like everyone else. I've learned over the years to respect people, to be kind. And if I'm angry about something, fine, I'm angry. That's how I'm only human. I can't be anything else. I can't be a saint. The need to accept our mortality. Because if we don't accept it and deny it and run away from it, it could chew us up anyway and it's something we all have to face. And accepting of it is a freeing experience. Yeah, because then you accept it and then you can live life more richly. By realizing your limitations, then you're free. One other thing. Are you having fun with this teaching thing? Is that something you're doing? Tell me about it. What is it about going there on the weekend? Is it Santa Monica? Santa Monica, the airport. There's a little group there run by John Ruskin, and I find it so stimulating to be with them and to open them up. And some of them don't have the talent for it, but they get up and do it anyway. And I gently try to prise them apart and open up their... make them relax and enjoy it. It takes me back 40 years when I started it. The struggle one has and the anger and the angst to try and get someone. And you see these young kids and I know what they're going through and the frustration. Some of them may never work. Some of them will. And it's a tough business. And I try to encourage them and give them hope. We have to pay attention. We better get on with our lives. Life is in session. This is it. And open ourself to it because... This is not a rehearsal. This is... We have to understand each other and try and live compassionately, I think, and passionately and lovingly. Because, you know, it's like that. We have no power to reject anything. You only have one chance on this merry-go-round. And don't take yourself so damn seriously. It's a tough business full of rejection, full of honors. I'm just one of the lucky ones. The voice that keeps reminding me... I guess it centers you and keeps you grounded, which is good. That's good. Because if you start believing your own publicity, if you start believing how good you are and you start living that fantasy, then you can go mad and become a monster. I hope whenever I get too smug or a little too pleased with myself, somebody will be there to remind me just to keep active, you know, and keep working. We'll take a break.