'Silence of the Lambs' Reunion! Anthony Hopkins & Jodie Foster Talk Dr. Lecter | Actors and Actors

hi tony hello hello how are you doing [Music] well i'm really excited to get to talk to you i haven't spoken to you since i saw the father which is just such an extraordinary movie it's such a such an amazing performance everything all right who are you actually it's me paul oh i live here what is this nonsense i have a little personal relationship with dementia my mom had dementia and um you know we cared for her for many many years and she taught us all so much you know about the human brain about the human spirit and there was a shift for my mom when she fought it initially she fought the idea of it and then there was a shift that came when she finally accepted that she wasn't quite sure what was happening i wonder if you want to talk about that a little bit that being in that space of not knowing what's real and what isn't real the dividing line of that i was so taken by the father and that performance that you gave because it was just was so well observed from the experience that i had had with my mom uh in dementia did what kind of research did you do for the project for the father i don't know none really i i the script was so good two scripts that had that immediate impact on me and then one was silence of the lambs and the father it was so clearly written ted tally wrote that one and christopher hampton wrote this one i didn't have to do any research uh and being an old guy i was able to easily fall into it so if i understand correctly you're leaving me is that it you're abandoning me dad what's going to become of me i've observed i've seen it in the other families where a member uh had dementia and it was painful for the family i always attempt especially getting old to to really simplify the process i don't analyze too much and when you have a really great script it's like a road map so i just followed the roadmap really it was that simple and because i didn't have to act old because i'm old i'm 83 now and yeah so my back hates and my knees ached i'm not a method act in that sense but my brain was taking i think my brain was singing why are we doing this what are we talking about we have a great script you have a wonderful cast it's it doesn't have to be hard work so that's what i'm saying it wasn't hard work it was easy for me i've been around a long time and i'm at that age there were moments at the very last piece when the man i'm playing anthony um doesn't know who he is he's with the the carer in the hospital that began to have a profound effects maybe it was that very last day i think on filming and it suddenly hit me as i was speaking in the lines as i was we did a quick rehearsal and suddenly it hit me with devastating force right in the chest this is all that we we forget who we are we forget all our anchors we forget everything why do you keep looking as if there's something wrong everything is fine we've had a reading the day before and um what suddenly struck me was my own father was in me because i had lying and then i said and i'm always on to her said now you know i'm nagging at her my daughter in the film and my father was like that as me was dying yeah i mean you know you don't know because he was frightened he was afraid and he was not mean just a rascal scared took a lot of patience to say okay my mother would try to help me said leave me alone and it's painful to see that and and uh when i was doing this it was um that would come up into me i knew how to play because i'd seen my own father going through it 40 years before and you think the hopelessness the emptiness and the sadness of it all and the facing finally knowing that this is it because none of us get out of this alive but it had a profound effect on my life and yes it sounds so cheesy that but it has changed something to me it's made me very aware now how precious life is you have this humble speak right where you're able to say it's all very simple and no i don't think about it too much and i i think i know what you're saying mostly is that you have to try to keep the distractions at bay and to try to to to focus on the simple things in a way so that you don't get distracted the truth for me and i think this from the father hit home to me but we did it way back just not quite two years ago but it opened something in my mind that made me ponder my own life i thought i don't know how i did any of this i didn't know why i became an actor i don't know why so and i look back at when i think i did that this came up here and that day what am i doing here and i can't account for any of it i can't even take credit for it so to me it's um an extraordinary experience just being alive i'm happier now than i've ever been at my age because i don't know how i got you i had no no plans i've never the doubt and and i've i've been part of my brain is probably very simple i i when i was younger i wanted to complicate everything but now working as an actor i literally just learn the lines and show up and uh hope my instincts are okay and that's we did with silence and lambs i remember that script was so good you think well no acting required so it's i just have such a ball doing it you know and i'm so glad to be alive and still doing it and i hope we do a bit more but we'll do one today it does feel in some ways you know watching it watching that performance felt like it did come from someplace else you know and something that's maybe bigger than you i mean sometimes i think i should just thank your parents for having you because you know you just came out that way and um in some ways the talent is not yours no you're just no nothing to do with this for eight years i have been dreaming of being in a courtroom now that i'm here i'm scared to death you know i think i figured out why they built guantanamo down there my client he's not a suspect he's a witness so tell me about the mauritanian when did you do that was that last year yeah we did it last year in fact we finished um i think we finished the beginning of february just as we were kind of getting the news about the impact of the pandemic and so when we left cape town we started being like wow this is this is getting interesting what's going to happen and then lo and behold you know eight months went by i'm not sure what happened in those eight months but uh uh yeah it feels like yesterday it really feels like yesterday it was all extraordinary it was amazing and i mean painful to watch as well the treatment in guantanamo wow muhammad story it really is amazing and you know you do movies for different reasons and sometimes you do it just for the character or sometimes because there's something about it you need to learn about yourself and in this case i think we were all there for him we really wanted to tell his story because he's such an extraordinary guy to have someone that went through what he went through you know 15 years in detained in prison without being told what his charge was you know after being abducted from his home by a foreign country for no reason um the fact that he emerged as a better human being somebody who instead of being angry after years of torture psychological torture and isolation he became somebody through his faith really that is joyful and isn't resentful and isn't angry who is forgiving really a better human being that's really a real testament to to uh to muhammadu's character this man is quite extraordinary he really is and funny incredibly funny you know and happy and joyful and uh loves movies i think he saw while he was in prison he saw um the big lebowski something like 80 times you know so he he learned he learned english in guantanamo from the 20 year old guards so he kind of talks like the dude you know he's he's just a lovely person and the woman that i play nancy hollander is a quite an extraordinary character too one of our amazing civil rights attorneys who mostly has defended people who are very guilty so probably 90 of the people that she's defended are guilty but she believes in the rule of law and the constitution um she's really kind of an american hero i worked with tahar rahim who's a young french actor who plays muhammadu el-slahi and the actress with me shailene woodley who i just adore it was so much fun for us because we just got to witness an amazing performance of an actor who was you know not acting but just a real transformation and it just felt such an i don't know like this little secret honor to be able to just be in the same room and to serve that performance and it reminded me of that revelation you know that first time that you get that performance there's a thrill i think to being with other actors younger people and watching them discover some things for the first time he helped to kill 3 000 civilians and we're doing everything we can to get him out we're doing our job i did bake sales for his legal fund that's not a part of my job my dad told me i'm not welcome home for thanksgiving this year that's not a part of my job get up what you want turkey and pumpkin pie with mom and dad and uncle joe go on get out go home you can't win a case if you don't believe your own [ __ ] with the moment when she had doubt and she argued with it because of the confession he said get out i feels wonderful because get out leave no yes but it was an essential part of your nature and your objective which i thought was stunning that that was extraordinary i never played a real person but once i played a real person uh but she had already been dead for 200 years so it made it easier tell me a little bit about your ex playing real people because i love the two popes i mean that really was my favorite movie last year i mean which is such an incredible film and and such a great transformation for you an amazing performance well i went to rome you know they've hit him put put the rope down it was quite an experience they were made in the vatican by the taylors by the pope's tale and i thought i'm going to play the pope and then they put the hat and the and all that and i thought oh i do look a bit like him i had to um you know a german accent so i didn't want to push that too much so it has a slight german accent there oh perhaps we'll find god over there on the journey i'll introduce you to him a replica of the sistine chapel it was extraordinary it was the painting and all that uh and working with jonathan price was a wonderful time it's such a wonderful and i don't know him that well we're both welshman great sense of humor and we had a joke because he was number one on the course she never was number two my daily business i'm a bit of a reckless i guess i read a lot i play the piano and i i play a complicated piece i'm not going to business but i play them to keep my brain in tune i like to cook when i'm shooting because i don't know when i come home i or i make soup or i make something and then it makes me feel like oh no now i'm in my real life that's a way for me to compartmentalize out of uh the when i finish making a movie or when i start making a movie i do have certain rituals that i'll do like you know i go on a really long hike before i start a shoot something that i just thought i couldn't you know and it makes you feel like i can do anything the power of the heart let's face it you're the best thing that ever happened to me how did the directing stuff because i saw you uh little man tate and i saw you at the premiere so how did that start i mean i always wanted to direct when i was a little girl i remember one of the first i was on a television show and while i was filming one day one of the actors was the director on my episode and i just couldn't figure it out i just was mesmerized and i thought oh my god they let actors become directors you know i was i thought oh well that's what i want to do i really kept that with me my whole life i thought that's what i wanted to do i just didn't know any female directors so i didn't know if it would be possible when i saw a movie ever it was probably like 12 or 13 when i saw um lena barrett miller's movie swept away and oh yes the woman director you know and i love that film and i thought that's that's what i want to do it's like when you get that first screenplay and you read it all the way through and you say i could spend the rest of my life doing this movie that's when you know it's something that you should direct and you've directed as well yes i've directed but i i don't think i have that skill that you have i'm good with actors but i i i i'm more in the hurricane just to one take a move on i like bringing all the pieces together in order to tell a story and i think when i was young i was more captivated by that than anything else because i had been an actor since i was three so when i was younger i was much more interested in how a camera worked and you know lenses and that kind of continued as the years went on and strangely you know i think you were saying that you're good with actors i don't know that i'm as good with actors i sort of rely on actors to come to the table with a lot hopefully i've cast the right people because i know that there's very little that i can do to change an actor's performance i can kind of guide them a little bit like a little border collie but ultimately it's up to them i don't think i have that kind of mindset that could i mean directing and editing and all that stuff that you did in little man tate that's beyond me the last movie i directed uh money monster was really a puzzle because there were all these different time frames that were happening you know a lot of things were on different television screens and they all had to be planned at the same time i i i can enjoy the the jigsaw puzzle of it all i have to say um as i said i felt like i've never had an actor's personality much to my chagrin it's it's does not come naturally to me or easily to me i'm much more i'm much more of a reader or thinker or strategizer you know i i'm always i'm a chess mover acting was just something that was my family's job you know my family profession in some ways that i fell into that's amazing and uh you've never felt like an actor you you you don't have that mindset but it's just you do it very well i always at least once a week i say oh i'm never going to act again you know at least once a week i say that i'm also enjoying doing television a lot and streaming being able to try new things whether it's trying sci-fi or you know comedy uh and not necessarily having to live with that movie for the next three years and instead being able to hop into a pilot or an episode of a tv show and be able to direct that it's been a lot of fun as well yeah good it's actually been nearly to the day it's been nearly 30 years since we did the silence of lambs hard to believe i ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti i have a lot of really fond memories of that movie of the shoot of being in pittsburgh jonathan demi of course who passed away recently somebody that we i know we both love are there any any specific memories that you have of that time i remember i must say this when i was in london in 1989 i was doing a film in a play in london called um and butterfly anyway one of my favorite plays of all time yeah he said once you read the script i said what is it he said it's called silence of the lambs i said was a children's story he said no it would do it's with jody fosse yeah okay okay so i was it's a hot summer afternoon and the script came over and i started reading it and after 10 pages i phoned my age and i said uh is is this a real offer it's i don't know what do you think i said i don't want to read anymore because i want to know this is an office i don't know i said gallery this the best part i've ever read he's okay he phoned back about four hours later jonathan demi the director with justin married to the mob i think at that moment with their mission mattered to the mob and he said uh jordan yeah god almighty i suppose so i read the rest of the script and jonathan came over on the saturday afternoon we had demanded he said uh i said is this for real he said yeah i said okay he's such a wonderful guy to work with and uh and then we met at the offices and i couldn't believe my luck of those and i was scared to speak to you i thought she just won enough another oscar never heard of you because of your performance um we didn't get to speak too much before the actual read-through so we just sort of waved across the room and then sat down at the table and as you launched into hannibal lecter i really i felt like a chill come over the room you know and i felt ripped and i was just too scared in a way it was like we were almost too scared to talk to each other after that yeah you know that i remember about that um you know we did the scene in the cell and all that you couldn't have lunch in that big warehouse it was in the westinghouse warehouse wasn't it right they didn't have lunch in that little makeup and they'd be ted levine and they're extraordinary all sitting having meal we've just been chomping on each other and making life hell for each other i knew we were it didn't make any sense at all and i thought it's a strange world we live in what does god make after he looks so what the hell are they all doing down there acting and that's why it's such an amusing game that we we get get up in the morning go to a place and put on somebody else's clothes and speak lines that have nothing to do with us and you think what on earth is it all about i remember being in pittsburgh and then going to the offices and you know not much to do and they did some uh wardrobe tests and uh i didn't know what authority i had but the board of designers said put me in this orange i said no i wanted a tailored one a tailored suit she said would have got a tailor to make his suit i saw my head because i knew what the character looked like and i the voice had come to me on the first reading in london when i read the party i don't know why and uh i said jonathan asked me he said oh what do you think i said well i think he's a a machine he's like half of a computer in 2001 good evening dave how i think one day i wanted that so he's like a submarine the hamilton and john's a submarine i see he just comes in like a silent shark yeah that was good what i'm grateful to you and jonathan it was the first day when you come down the the corridor and jonathan's how do you want to be seen do you would you wouldn't be do you think you'd be reading or painting or drawing drawings or lying down on the bed i still like to be standing here standing okay why i said i can smell her coming down the corner he said that yeah it was such an eerie set you know there's that that dark line with all of the different inmates you know all very dark and moody and then suddenly we come to lecters and there's it's all very bright and kind of fluorescent lighting and two-dimensional it was such an interesting choice well i remember because i i was naturally i was nervous when i was in uh london because i you know an english monogamous a limey like me or a welshman whatever playing an american uh serial killer i knew that day when i thought well i'll just try it out and and i remember jonathan in the distance when the camera picked me up he said oh my god that's it she said hopkins you are so weird i said oh my thank you and they wanted that billy the hopkins the lighting guy would come into the cell i said what are you doing myself at least oh my god so i knew that i'd hit it i knew i'd press the right button and so once you've got that button like standard slashing thoughts once you've got that little shoe roll wherever it is gives you the direction hold on to it and go with it it also becomes contagious with the other people that are working with you now um i remember that the specific voice you had the kind of metallic tinge to your voice um chris newman was the was this sound mixer and he also enhanced that you know he was able to kind of bring that up a little bit and enhance that um i feel like we were all inspired by the book and then each person took that inspiration to do to really contribute the best work that they've done in their life yes it was a wonderful time i remember actually there was a teacher at the royal academy and he was a sort of uh his name was christopher fettis he was a movement teacher and he was a cervican he had a cutting voice and he was critical he would slice it to pieces but his analysis of what you were doing was so precise and it's a method that stayed with me for all my life when i was doing i thought this is christopher's this is the voice this man was merciless and i remember doing the the cage scene when i said no wrong driving and i used to speak no try it again and that to anyone to the observer or the recipient of that is lethal and charismatic because you think oh my god there's no mercy but also the moment where lecter is sitting in a chair and he's just doing this back and forth and you know waiting for his pupil to give him the story what does the teacher they're all these tiny details that really it's a it's i'm really proud of this movie tell me about clarice because how did you because of my my first impression when i saw you before i even started i went to see dailies but you were in the theater and i hadn't even started on the film i was waiting around the hotel and there was this several scenes with you in the garage with the lamplight he's found ed saxon's head in the bottle but i remember and i think jonathan showed some other clips for my benefit really for all of us just it together and i remember the one when you get into the elevator with all those big fbi guys and that's it this is brilliant this is brilliant because there you are a smaller person this big macho man world coming in as the hero campbell's hero warm and that was a great yeah because it was wasn't it there's one yeah there are certain images that kind of get seared into your imagination and you say oh that's you know that's the character that's what it's about you know for me clarice it was also about her voice mostly because she was somebody that had been scarred by this the bleeding of the lambs you know and the sound and how there was nothing that she could do to help them and she couldn't speak and she had that child's voice the fact that she was you know somebody who who who was scarred by that and and in in that way she had this kind of quietness that she never used contractions you know she said do not instead of don't and trying to somebody that will correct and that didn't come from the background that she came from that there was a lot of not so much apology but and almost a shame that she wasn't bigger that she wasn't stronger that she wasn't louder that in her past she she had failed you know i think that was the part for me once i understood that sense of this person trying to overcome the failure of what they were born in the body they were born in i understood that she was that that was her strength you know that her handicap in some ways that she was just like the victims she was just you know another girl so just another girl in another town the fact that she could relate to those victims made her the hero of the film when they saw the dailies the compilation of scenes that night i remember that when you're in jack crawford's office and you see the photographs he says uh you're going to see dr lex and you say hannibal the cannibal i see asia and then your respect for a superior officer in the in in the fbi and your your nervousness and politeness towards him you don't want to let any lecture in that your mind i thought this is brilliantly set up and that scene um that scene particularly i thought it was also brilliantly set up and the very fact that you that jody foster that clarice starting a woman in a man's macho world you know strength and brutality all that that helped me i remember that on that sunday before we started work on the film and i remember thinking that's why lecter pays you great respect because it's ah so jack rawford sent you hmm interesting and he must love you and admire you for doing that good for you you did it these idiots these big bone-headed idiots around you you are here so we can have some fun gonna have some fun knowing that crawford has sent her in order to extract something from him you know what does that say about his relationship with crawford his responding to her politeness and her respect knowing that that's what she's been taught and yet still kind of responding to it i mean it's all it's all very interesting in its small detail and when i first was through the movie i remember you know my mom said to me she said you know why do you want to play this character who's kind of quiet and mousy you know i understand lecter because lectures i said oh no it's that's the beauty of the details of this film that it's um some of the details are so small and so subtle the subtlety of the movie in the midst of a genre movie is really its strength yes and also the relationship when when lectures um is like a teacher lover teacher who's tough doesn't know how to get up with it don't get beaten nicely nicely with me you know what you look like with your good cheap shoes you look like a robe well scrap house so it's like saying when are you gonna learn the real lessons stop being such a nice lady when you're gonna get real because he's 15 moves ahead of crawford a real testament to jonathan you know i love jonathan i know you love jonathan i think that i loved about him most is that he could be so silly that he was you know with sometimes big hawaiian shirts and you know he'd play crazy music and he just was had this always this big happy grin on his face it is extraordinary it's amazing it has been a life-changing adventure for both of us i think you know number one because of the characters because of clarisse and hannibal life-changing characters but also everything the aftermath yes i love it how that movie has touched people i'm sure you still get people come up to you and say you know can i would you like a nice key and stuff oh yeah yeah it was a lot of fun to do thank you glory thank you i don't know if it's possible that your work gets better as you get older but it seems to me like you just keep getting better and better do you feel like you're accessing something now that you're older that escaped you a little bit more when you're younger yes i i do really it's it's become easier because i'm old and i've got a lot of experience at it i'm situated learning lines i learned the text and then you know i can improvise because once you know it my only theory is i'm not a method that i've all good respect to these strasbourg you know that's the way it is but for me the thing is the text the words and once they're in there it's like eating flavor beans once you divide the lines then you can free to move around and improvise within it to make it sound real and so it is easier and i enjoy the the so-called hard work process which is not hard i enjoy keeping my brain active other characters and performances that have stuck with you that you've had a hard time kind of moving on from oh no no i move on very quickly and i look at my life now i think how did it happen and i you know every day i just think well i didn't know i'm still here and i i looked back and all and i a lot of it was done without me it was like i got an i have a feeling i got onto a big vehicle somewhere and there or yes it took me on the journey somewhere and i didn't know i can't account for any of it i'm using these adventures that we get to have you know where you you get to learn about something that you didn't know enough about and delve into it through the character and then you know you're able to walk away from it four or five months later but you you also have these ordinary relationships that you get to have on screen you were talking about your relationship with jonathan these people that you've met my relationship with you and we were doing silence of the lambs um so much of what we do is in reaction to each other you know we're like carnival people yes you know you move and say goodbye see you again monday you know never know and then you show up some years later and it's so that's a wonderful life that's why i feel that um so lucky because that should pay you to do it as well and i think that's where you and i and actually in our business we are lucky we have this thing to fall back on all right larry oh tony bye dr electrum [Music] you

Channel: Variety

Views: 504,494

Keywords: Variety, Variety Studio, Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Demme, Anthony Hopkins And Jodie Foster, Anthony Hopkins Jodie Foster, Silence of the Lambs, Horror, Silence of the Lambs 30 Year Reunion, Silence of the Lambs Anthony Hopkins, Silence of the Lambs Anniversary, Silence of the Lambs Jodie Foster, The Father, The Mauritanian, Actors on Actors, Actors on Actors 2021

Id: u2QjdRaLfa8

Length: 31min 21sec (1881 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 19 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/drum_playing_twig]

Lovely to see them talking to each other again!

But they are separated by something, both staring into the camera. Creepy. Hmm... where have I seen this before?

[u/scootskitchen]

Was really hoping Hopkins wouldn’t blink the whole time and open with a Clarice comment.

[u/n0mis]

The Silence of the Lambs discussion between then starts at the 15:30 section.

[u/cinephile46]

Thanks for sharing.