BEAUTY issue
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ONLINE content
ART & ARCHITECTURE
Questions for Bassam Fellows interview Iké Udé
BON APPÉTIT
Lucien interview Danielle Brown
BUSINESS OFF THE WALL
Questions For Aaron Schwartz
FASHION
Badgley Mischka interview Iké Udé
La Vie En Rose photography Andrew Matusik
FASHION LINGERIE
Suite 1940 photography Ben Oliver
KULTURE & ART CINEMA
Anthony Hopkins Not Brain Surgery interview Brandon Judell
KULTURE & ART PAINTING
talking with Marlene Dumas interview Odili Donald Odita
Johan Falkman A Dance-Macbre Around The Autopsy Table interview Magnus Sjöholm
KULTURE & ART PHOTOGRAPHY
Daniel Malcolm interview Koan Jeff Baysa
SHELTER & DESIGN FLORAL DESIGN
Questions for Olivier Guigni
TRAVEL & LEISURE
"Brazil? With my hair? Never!!" Diane von Furstenberg
aRUDE comment
bridal_issue_ahop.php
ONLINE content
ART & ARCHITECTURE
Questions for Bassam Fellows interview Iké Udé
BON APPÉTIT
Lucien interview Danielle Brown
BUSINESS OFF THE WALL
Questions For Aaron Schwartz
FASHION
Badgley Mischka interview Iké Udé
La Vie En Rose photography Andrew Matusik
FASHION LINGERIE
Suite 1940 photography Ben Oliver
KULTURE & ART CINEMA
Anthony Hopkins Not Brain Surgery interview Brandon Judell
KULTURE & ART PAINTING
talking with Marlene Dumas interview Odili Donald Odita
Johan Falkman A Dance-Macbre Around The Autopsy Table interview Magnus Sjöholm
KULTURE & ART PHOTOGRAPHY
Daniel Malcolm interview Koan Jeff Baysa
SHELTER & DESIGN FLORAL DESIGN
Questions for Olivier Guigni
TRAVEL & LEISURE
"Brazil? With my hair? Never!!" Diane von Furstenberg
ANTHONY HOPKINS not brain surgery
interview Brandon Judell
Anthony Hopkins click image to enlarge Brandon Judell: Burt Munro has to be one of your more innocent, cheerier characters. Did you find this a challenge after all of your Hannibal portrayals?
Anthony Hopkins: I’m just an actor. That's all I am. No big deal.
BJ: Burt has such an open embrace of the world at large.
AH: He’s like me when I came to America. I'm still pretty wide-eyed. I'm mostly taken by surprise by things. That’s how I’ve treated my whole life actually. I've always been in a state of surprise—because I moseyed onto this train called Show Business long ago, and I’m still going. It's a pleasant journey. I've had a great time of it.
BJ: Even when you were younger?
AH: When you’re younger, you’ve got a lot of ideas. You're probably more insecure and all those things. I work with young actors now, and I see that they have insecurities. When you get older, you think: it's only a movie after all, it's not brain surgery. I'm not schizophrenic; it’s just the use of another rhythm of myself.
BJ: You once said that as a child you had no brains and thats why you became an actor.
AH: I just was probably… I couldn’t figure out anything when I was in school, so I became an actor because I didn’t know what else to do. Academically, I wasn’t good. I was just slow, or different.
BJ: Dyslexic?
AH: No, I don’t know. I remember kids in school who could understand math, and we had one guy in school who was, like, a genius. I don’t know whatever happened to him. He may have ended up driving a truck somewhere, but he was brilliant in school. Good student. David Davis his name was. Amazing. I hated him because of that. He never did any homework. He just got it all the time, (Hopkins snaps his fingers several times). I would have liked to be like that, but I couldn't, because I didn't have that type of brain. I think we’re all different. Some people are musicians and some people are actors. Some people are accountants. Some people are agents, and some people are newspaper guys, or drivers, or whatever. We're all different.
BJ: Have you changed the way you tackled roles in recent years?
AH: Well, I’ve employed the same method, which is to learn the lines—literally. I really mean it, I just learn the text. I read the script maybe twice, and then I go over lines, over and over. After about ten times I get a rhythm in my head. When I can hear the rhythm, something clicks somewhere. Then, I think, Oh, yeah. I hear certain rhythms of speech, and I think, Yeah, this is interesting. That'll take me into another area—I begin to feel like someone else. I'm not schizophrenic; it's just the use of another rhythm of myself.
BJ: Your Burt Munro arrives in the United States, and the land and the people give him complete culture shock. How was it for you the first time you landed on our shores?
AH: When I came to New York thirty-odd years ago, I was staying at the Algonquin Hotel. I'd been living in England for years, and I wanted to come to America. And I remember getting up in the morning at the Algonquin on September 13, 1974, and I went down Fifth Avenue to get a newspaper.
BJ: There was a poll taken by the Old Vic Theatre, and you came off as the number one British actor of all time, above Laurence Olivier, Alec Guinness, and Michael Caine. Judi Dench was your counterpart among the ladies. What does it mean to you that you were declared the best?
AH: I honestly don’t know. It’s a source of puzzlement to me and I'm very pleased. I've thought a lot lately about it, but I honestly don't know. I blush at it because I worked with Olivier, and he was a great, great actor. And I've seen those guys like Alec Guinness. It's great to be old that. But remember, [because of that] I have got a few enemies in England now! I don't know what's happened to me over the last few years except that some things have opened up in me, and I don't take it…I suppose the last ten years… I don't know how to explain this. If I say I don’t take any of it seriously, I really mean it, I don't. But I do my job. I do what I’m paid to do: I show up and I am always prepared. I'm prepared by learning the text so well that when I show up, I'm relaxed, and the performance sort of happens. Now whether that's good or bad, I don't know. I've been in films that were bad. I've given some bad performances as well. But I think maybe people are responding in a way…whatever I'm going to say will sound like somebody who is self-centered, so I better shut up. What I mean is, when they say that about me, I think… I got the Cecil B. Demille recently—I was very pleased to get it, but I’m still standing up there, thinking, have they got the right person? I still do that.
interview Brandon Judell
Anthony Hopkins click image to enlarge Brandon Judell: Burt Munro has to be one of your more innocent, cheerier characters. Did you find this a challenge after all of your Hannibal portrayals?
Anthony Hopkins: I’m just an actor. That's all I am. No big deal.
BJ: Burt has such an open embrace of the world at large.
AH: He’s like me when I came to America. I'm still pretty wide-eyed. I'm mostly taken by surprise by things. That’s how I’ve treated my whole life actually. I've always been in a state of surprise—because I moseyed onto this train called Show Business long ago, and I’m still going. It's a pleasant journey. I've had a great time of it.
BJ: Even when you were younger?
AH: When you’re younger, you’ve got a lot of ideas. You're probably more insecure and all those things. I work with young actors now, and I see that they have insecurities. When you get older, you think: it's only a movie after all, it's not brain surgery. I'm not schizophrenic; it’s just the use of another rhythm of myself.
BJ: You once said that as a child you had no brains and thats why you became an actor.
AH: I just was probably… I couldn’t figure out anything when I was in school, so I became an actor because I didn’t know what else to do. Academically, I wasn’t good. I was just slow, or different.
BJ: Dyslexic?
AH: No, I don’t know. I remember kids in school who could understand math, and we had one guy in school who was, like, a genius. I don’t know whatever happened to him. He may have ended up driving a truck somewhere, but he was brilliant in school. Good student. David Davis his name was. Amazing. I hated him because of that. He never did any homework. He just got it all the time, (Hopkins snaps his fingers several times). I would have liked to be like that, but I couldn't, because I didn't have that type of brain. I think we’re all different. Some people are musicians and some people are actors. Some people are accountants. Some people are agents, and some people are newspaper guys, or drivers, or whatever. We're all different.
I'm not schizophrenic; it's just the use of another rhythm of myself.
BJ: Have you changed the way you tackled roles in recent years?
AH: Well, I’ve employed the same method, which is to learn the lines—literally. I really mean it, I just learn the text. I read the script maybe twice, and then I go over lines, over and over. After about ten times I get a rhythm in my head. When I can hear the rhythm, something clicks somewhere. Then, I think, Oh, yeah. I hear certain rhythms of speech, and I think, Yeah, this is interesting. That'll take me into another area—I begin to feel like someone else. I'm not schizophrenic; it's just the use of another rhythm of myself.
BJ: Your Burt Munro arrives in the United States, and the land and the people give him complete culture shock. How was it for you the first time you landed on our shores?
AH: When I came to New York thirty-odd years ago, I was staying at the Algonquin Hotel. I'd been living in England for years, and I wanted to come to America. And I remember getting up in the morning at the Algonquin on September 13, 1974, and I went down Fifth Avenue to get a newspaper.
BJ: There was a poll taken by the Old Vic Theatre, and you came off as the number one British actor of all time, above Laurence Olivier, Alec Guinness, and Michael Caine. Judi Dench was your counterpart among the ladies. What does it mean to you that you were declared the best?
AH: I honestly don’t know. It’s a source of puzzlement to me and I'm very pleased. I've thought a lot lately about it, but I honestly don't know. I blush at it because I worked with Olivier, and he was a great, great actor. And I've seen those guys like Alec Guinness. It's great to be old that. But remember, [because of that] I have got a few enemies in England now! I don't know what's happened to me over the last few years except that some things have opened up in me, and I don't take it…I suppose the last ten years… I don't know how to explain this. If I say I don’t take any of it seriously, I really mean it, I don't. But I do my job. I do what I’m paid to do: I show up and I am always prepared. I'm prepared by learning the text so well that when I show up, I'm relaxed, and the performance sort of happens. Now whether that's good or bad, I don't know. I've been in films that were bad. I've given some bad performances as well. But I think maybe people are responding in a way…whatever I'm going to say will sound like somebody who is self-centered, so I better shut up. What I mean is, when they say that about me, I think… I got the Cecil B. Demille recently—I was very pleased to get it, but I’m still standing up there, thinking, have they got the right person? I still do that.
