I spent two years in the military service, then I trudged around in repertory for quite a while. I somehow wound up at the National Theatre, though, and then I was definitely on my way.
The trick is not to get too fanatical about getting the accent too accurate because then that becomes a mask. What I try to do is just painting and sketching some of the sounds without obliterating my own voice.
I’ll do anything to keep everyone laughing. Things get too intense on film sets. I remember on The Elephant Man, I used to imitate a cat without moving my lips. David Lynch would say, “Cut! Sorry, we’ve got a noise somewhere on set.” Everyone would be looking around for this cat.
I’m very much a loner. I don’t like long relationships with people and I always keep people at a distance.
When you’re younger you have so many ideas about yourself; everything is important. It’s not when you look back, nothing is that important. It’s only life.
If you’re in a successful play and the play is working well – I mean successful because the audiences like it, the audiences respond well – it’s a pleasure.
I’m not unfamiliar with music, and I really do write music. I’ve gotten a talent for it. I don’t have the technical skills, but I do plan to learn.
I always liked to take the plunge, you know, I’d jump in at the deep end and hope that I’d find land somehow, or hope I’d float or survive. That’s more or less the way I’ve gone through my life.
I love traveling. I like to keep moving. I love the big open spaces in America.
Oliver Stone is a great director and I’ve seen many films over the years, but I try to create stuff out of my own imagination. I want to break all the rules and mess about with it and make a different movie just for the fun of it.
I said once that if they gave me enough money to read the phone book, I’d do it. I live in a total state of non-expectation. I don’t expect things, and I keep my expectations very low about everything.
When I direct I try to keep it a unique design of my own. Naturally you’re influenced.
I am young! Being creative and keeping your brain occupied is very sensible because if you don’t you die, slowly.
I play piano and that’s my love. I read and I paint and I compose music, so I’ve got a pretty full creative life. And it’s not because, I’m obsessively creative.
I visualized a lot of things happening to me, because I was a lonely kid because I didn’t understand anything about school.
I play music – I write my own music, but I play music, just background music really, and just let it happen.
When people call me Sir Anthony I just think oh, that’s a bit odd. But I’m not cynical about it. Um, I just feel more comfortable being called Tony or Mr. Hopkins, whatever name I’m called.
I always distrust the word art when it is applied to acting.
Working with Katherine Hepburn, she said to me, “Don’t act.” She said, “Read the lines. Just be. Just speak the lines.” I said, “Okay.” She said, “You look good. You got a good pair of shoulders, you got a good head, good face.”
I became an actor because I didn’t know what else to do. Academically, I wasn’t good.
I watched a film with a very famous, great, great actor, I won’t mention his name because everyone loves his memory, but I thought, “God he was acting a lot.” Great actor, but nonstop acting. Wall to wall, fitted-carpet acting.