Dennis Hopper (on Apocalypse Now and Marlon Brando)

yeah in ten let me run some some names of actors by you that you've worked with and give me a quick take Brando yeah that's a show all that song I have so many you know deep feelings about Brando uh uh he's he's the greatest film actor that I've ever seen uh hands down and I knew that when I was in my teens so and between Montgomery Clift and Marlon Brando they were they just changed my whole life as an actor I was in Orson Welles very dramatic Shakespearean actor and when I was 13 or 14 I saw in one week I saw a Place in the Sun with Montgomery Clift in it and I saw the first time I saw Brando was not his first film but I summoned Viva Zapata and those two movies changed my whole way of thinking about film I had to I mean about acting I had to rethink everything cuz it was so subtle they were so beautiful was Brando the greatest film actor because of the quality of his talent and technique alone or is it inseparable from his presence I think he was both it was both but he had great technique I mean great great he was a great tech technician but also he had a presence on screen it was just no I think but it was well it's hard to distinguish between his acting and his personal but he had such magnetism he said such incredible magnetism and then personally just uh oh I don't know I mean it was just meeting him was one thing and then working with him on Apocalypse Now we had a lot of problems together and he refused to be on the set the same time I was and why uh I'd like to think that he was doing me a favor honestly but um it's a long story we have nothing but time oh sure sure you do oh yeah well god I went down to okay I went down first of all I to do Apocalypse Now Fred Roose wanted me to Danah it seemed tracks that I did with Henry jag went and played a soldier coming back from Vietnam War I said well I'll do this because I was in France and I was out of work I said I'll do this but I want one line with Brando I don't care what it is I just want one line with Brando so that was related to Francis France said okay and so I arrived in the Philippines from France and uh he Brando has not arrived now Brando is on a million dollar contract and he's gonna play a million dollars a week he's gonna do one week and then it keeps going whatever so everybody's waiting for Brando to arrive because Brando is now been ill or something's happening and everybody's sitting around waiting for Brando to arrive so I when Brando finally arrives I've been down there a month and a half and I have this crack unit we're doing drills we're doing karate jujitsu we're climbing trees worse County we're holding bridges at the Japanese and the everybody in the French and God knows who have lost and gained and so on in real wars and we're doing really well we're crack unit and I got me at the GAO headhunters and we're going for it so anyway so doing go to dinner and at dinner I have been given a little red book this red book is a special services book by the special service which I'm not really supposed to have but one of the Green Berets gave it to me and I got in my booth so at dinner francis has been on him I don't know this but France has been on him saying you didn't read the book you didn't read heart of darkness he's been on Brando all day finds out Brando has not read the book cause he's not gonna have a story conference we got to do this picture lover when there's no ending and I say to Brando sitting across from him at dinner I bet you haven't read the book and he thinks I'm talking about heart of darkness but I don't know this at the time so I'm bout ready to pull out the red book and he gets up and he says I don't have to listen to this I don't have to take this and he's screaming and yelling why do I have to hear it from him I have to hear it from this Punk you know and he's screaming and yelling at Francis and he storms out of the house so I take this very personally and start getting into my cups and like you know and doing few other things that we have plenty of down there and I and I we going to a boxing match they've some Bantam weights of Philippine venom which is really good and they're gonna put on a fight that night and brando's honor so we go there and I sit behind Brando and I start doing numbers on him at the boxing match and then then we go to see the Seven Samurai in a movie theater and I'm sitting then again behind him and I get up at one point and I say there's an actor in here that like you know that said of a dead friend of mine that he wore as last year of Levi's drove his last year motorcycle Wars lat and did his last year bongo drums and I sure would like a piece of his ass in film on film bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah bah and I storm out and stagger into something like motorcycle and fall over there's a bushes or something yeah but anyway the next day everything shut down and Brando and Francis go off on on a two-week River excursion and come back two weeks later with a script and so Brando said I work with him but you do your scenes first and then I'll come and listen to you but we'll never be on the set together that's my problem is I don't only have to come up with a scene but it's got to have the right shape to fit in the jigsaw puzzle maybe I ought to get Dennis Hopper in the scene so it's just not with two characters oh no I don't know Francis you know I don't know buddy's told me I mean I have been afraid to even put then as hopin you're holding two cathica Christ I haven't figured out what Marty's gonna do it Marlon what happens if I got crazy Dennis Hopper in there I know nothing I'll tell you but she said you don't let me call you how I see when Jiffy Lube says we've got experience when he was telling NYU Martin breast

Channel: fivealex2010

Views: 1,456,085

Rating: 4.8371778 out of 5

Keywords: Dennis, Hopper, Apocalypse, Now, and, Marlon, Brando

Id: Isk-mJBK1tk

Length: 6min 21sec (381 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 02 2010