Anthony Hopkins Reveals Why He Didn't Blink While Playing Hannibal | The Dick Cavett Show

um Burton what we talked about earlier on a show I did with him I tremulously raised the subject of booze I said did you talk about it and as you know he did and he looked into the camera and delivered a very moving speech really about if it's your enemy as well as it is mine I know what you're going through and so on and so on this was actually flipped out and used by AAA and others oh well that now you fall into the same category you had a period that's always written about about excessive boozing and wildness and if you think O'Toole and Burton was something you should have seen Hopkins ladies that's the worst and so on and you've beaten it yeah I was pretty mildly compared to those two he declined the title to you yeah I did I gave up the championship yeah I was just a nuisance one thing no I wasn't really having I was just in a lot of trouble I was just a nuisance and there one day or some years ago now I stopped I thought this is crazy and I was really tired and fed up with myself and I stopped was it just an act of well did you have help I got some help for it and you know and I I realized that I wasn't alone with it and that was the end of that I'm glad to say and I never thought it would be possible to live without it because it was my only sustenance it was my only way of coping and now the I've got into habit over the years of not thinking and um yeah my life is so much better my guess is that the Welch have a higher rate of depression than other races I haven't seen the statistics on it we notify other Scandinavians do and so did he give me land yeah it's pretty isolated on the little Peninsula and there were a melancholy people the Irish have got much more going for me because they're much more extrovert and crazier than I thought so rather repressed yeah good people I don't have problems with being well so not much on it okay my wife's colleagues would say what are you seeing you're worse you know well shock oh now English I said forget it so I think British not just a hedge my bet if only England looked like it does in her exam they're all the time the beautiful I would have been happy to be igniting again as New Zealand you enjoyed the film very much isn't there a way in which it's a little easier for an actor to play an insane man than it is to play a terribly ordinary man who has dimensions to him that have to be seen like this man is that he plays is his properties repressed he does not like the lower classes he eventually collapses it seems to me in a way it would be harder to place it's like that they play mad man but because of one's vanity you know you always wanted to look good you always want to be too sympathetic character something Wilcox's you don't have much chance what I try to do is I'm wearing that silly cap you know and looking right there right whatever they called and but it is difficult but uh not as difficult as I it's much more fun playing the villains is it oh yeah you can be yeah you use much more dimension to it have you known any madmen other than those that are effective anyway divine right I mean have you ever been in the back ward of an old asylum or no but I'm actually met I've met a madman who's on the loose in London and that's pretty scary you know and I coffee with Monday I realized how nuts he was he never blinked so I basically never kept asking me questions and before you could ask me to ask you another one and another one and in the end it made you feel serve the children in a different reality so at any given moment in talking with him you didn't see the insanity no you know completely it's like something I noticed no a woman who used to kick you on the shins and then say don't you have a sense of humor and smile that kind of madness you know they could change the reality for you but those people can really manipulate you I think I think Kathy Bates in misery is the most brilliant piece of mad acting I've ever seen no really yeah sure yeah I knew I this woman in my in America I she was exactly like Kathy Bates in this film I'd never know what you gonna do you say you don't know how to handle me - nah - you can't pay them a compliment to me sudden they say what you mean by that and and it's Hannibal now now I realize he didn't move a lot and no I didn't and you didn't blame no a doctor I know who used to work in the old back wards of asylum yeah said the scariest thing about the truly insane was that they seemed to be like many other people you had met yeah and and except for a moment when they were convinced that there was someone standing during that door with a noose yeah and if you might be wise to avoid them easily groom or something but it is not uncommon experience thing you know being with somebody was not I'd agreed that there's five or six people like a name in our business who if it weren't for acting would be locked up somewhere between that wonderful outlet well they're not allowed to mention names yeah that's a couple of those I mean you've gotten to be Hitler you've gotten yeah you Captain Bligh I think most active I think most actors are they don't say the Mac but I think most actors are slightly damaged goods you know I don't we become actors because when you think of to go onstage in front of 800 people whatever does in the first night it is kind of an act an outside of mental health okay I'm sorry if they could break down centers it won't be right back [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The Dick Cavett Show

Views: 824,042

Rating: 4.885386 out of 5

Keywords: The Dick Cavett Show, Talk Show, Musician, Celebrities, Dick Cavett, United States, Chat Show, Interview, anthony hopkins, hannibal, hannibal lecter, silence of the lambs, anthony hopkins hannibal, anthony hopkins blink, hannibal blinking, anthony hopkins hannibal interview, anthony hopkins interview, anthony hopkins dick cavett, sir anthony hopkins, classic interviews, lecter, hannibal lecter scene, dr. hannibal lecter, hannibal lecter evolution

Id: rkh-bOujn40

Length: 5min 50sec (350 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 05 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/traderjehoshaphat]

That's a terrible nickname - "Old" Anthony Hopkins

[u/JusAnotherManicMandy]

Love this guy in just about anything, but I really love watching him preform Shakespeare...

[u/Inrau]

The Dick Cavett Show is a true MVP.

[u/rexlaser]

Looks more like a young Anthony Hopkins to me.

[u/tryintofly]

Poor Old Anthony Hopkins