Anthony Hopkins On What He Learned From Laurence Olivier | The Dick Cavett Show

did did you always have a burning desire to act uh from um from the womb onwards no i didn't have anything better to do i i was uh let's say uh not swift at school you know academically or athletically so my i was the only child my parents were very worried about me you know they thought well what on earth am i going to do and one thing i could do i was a very good mimic and i could play the piano and that sort of saved the day for me but i i was very introverted and rather shy and my father suggested i could join the ymca so i did one night and i hated joining anything and there happened to be an amateur uh players group there and uh i walked in and asked if i could join and they put a sheet over me and told me to be a disciple in the nice to play and i did that and i felt very comfortable and from then on i became an actor it was as little as that and i thought well and i enjoyed the feeling of being on stage and i thought i could overcome shyness then i i realized that there was more to it that than that i couldn't find just an identity through acting so over the years i've gradually beginning to understand that uh my acting is a part of my life and i'm comfortable with acting and i'm comfortable in my life as an actor more than i've ever been i enjoy acting more than i've ever enjoyed when you don't act for a stretch do you get uh antsy and a desire to run around the track and do it again and feel something in there building up yes yes not as much as i used to because uh i i don't i don't uh socialize much with actors i stay away from them as much as possible i live a very uh quotes normal life because i think it's the only way to sanity is to you know i i do i'm maybe maybe it's well what i do i switch off immediately after the job after after the work i call it a job easy after after the work i switch off and i go home and go to bed or go out for dinner so i and i couldn't do that when i was doing equals here in new york i turned up three hours before the performance and it was very difficult to leave the theater three hours before yes and it was ridiculous i mean my i was my life was totally unmanageable i mean i i was a slave to acting and i'm not anymore i mean i what did you do in those three hours if you got the theater at five o'clock i just moved around and wasted time why was that important to be at the theater then it was a sort of neurosis i think i i don't know i was i was so involved and uptight about everything about acting and i was so insecure i wanted to be sure that it was perfect you know and perfectionism of that kind is a sort of an insanity i think and i've just learned over the last couple of years to not take it so seriously you know to treat it as a game and to drop the goals and the paradox is that by dropping those goals i feel much fresher and i feel much more powerful and i feel that i have greater reserves because maybe my energy is being used uh like something sometimes takes over when i did the magic i uh i trusted the director so much i trusted the situation and i learned learned the lines and learned what i had to do and then threw myself in the deep end and it was performed for me in a way it's like a you know called power of subconscious mind or god or whatever you want to call it and i i trust more i trust my inner reserves now and so i know how and to rest learning to anyway i learned how to renounce maybe the secret of survival in this business uh you have a background that um american actors would envy or maybe some british actors would envy also because you were at the national when olivier was director of the national also appearing there and so on uh can you learn really anything from a great actor somebody said you can learn from mediocre actors but you can't really learn from a great actor because genius can't be transmitted or whatever well i i i stole from lawrence olivier unashamedly i mean i i was in in his production of othello and i i used to watch and watch and watch and what i what i find devastating about olivia is that his capacity for work is phenomenal i mean he he is he dares i mean he will put himself out not on a limb but on a twig i mean he will dare disaster he will dare death and i think in his own life he is dead all those things i mean he's been severely ill he's been very ill and uh he's recovered from these illnesses i don't know how i hear he's better now but what i he he can never understand uh uh laziness i mean to him that's a mission when people don't strive to uh improve themselves technically this technique is for is the most formidable technique i've ever seen i mean devastating i was in the othello and one day i i remember i had to play as a very small part uh with no lines just walk on stage and show them a map and i still hate it i said dread going on because he has the capacity to make you vanish on stage and it's sort of enveloping power and uh yes he's been probably the most influential person in my life you you said something in it i think in an interview that i read or somewhere that um it was kind of a refreshing heresy that you're it's the first time i've ever heard an actress say that repertory isn't the greatest thing an actor can be in they always say oh if we only had repertoire if we only and you found it limiting in some way yes i can't stand being in a company for too long i get i get nervous i get restless and i want to do something else and i mean i can only take about five weeks of run i was doing equals in uh los angeles recently and i'd set the whole thing up myself and after the second night i thought why aren't i at home watching television [Laughter] i get very restless but no i'd like to do a run of a play for five to ten weeks maximum and that's it i i get i get bored to distraction i can't keep it fresh and i try to keep it fresh but i'm at my wit's end after the end of about five weeks and the last five but i you know i go through i'm always wanting to be at the next party i'm always sure that somebody else has got a better answer somewhere you [Music] [Applause] know [Music] you

Channel: The Dick Cavett Show

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Id: eRfvPAT7s5I

Length: 6min 12sec (372 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 06 2020