Anthony Hopkins Scrapbook, Page 3

PAGE 3

^>from The Good Father (1985)

^from 84 Charing Cross Road (1986)

I woke up one night in 1986 with an unusual urge to turn on the television. By an amazing coincidence, what should I see when I did but a show featuring a segment on Anthony Hopkins! He had grown a salt-and-pepper beard to play the part of King Lear on stage, which was rather eerie insofar as I had recently dreamed of him looking exactly that way. The show discussed how he was somewhat typecast when it came to parts such as the one in The Good Father, which eventually came to cable. The show mentioned that he had another movie out at the time, 84 Charing Cross Road (1986), where he was, the narrator said, playing against type by starring as a mild-mannered bookshop keeper. A few years later, in another TV interview, I heard him describe himself as as "an obsessive, addictive, neurotic, melancholy crazy-man," well-suited for the parts he had commonly played, though he thought he was mellowing with age.

<^from The Tenth Man (1988)

These nice shots are from the People magazine advertisement and review of an excellent "Hallmark Hall of Fame" presentation that Tony starred in, which I made a point of seeing. I was working for a publisher at this time, and my manager mentioned that she also liked Anthony Hopkins a lot (though she liked Sean Connery and perhaps even Albert Finney better). This was the first I'd ever talked to anyone else who did; he still wasn't that well known in this country.

^>from The Silence of the Lambs (1991)

Tony's comparative anonymity ended suddenly in 1991 with the release of the hugely successful Silence of the Lambs. By early 1992 Anthony Hopkins was a household word, and appearing in all the media. Unfortunately, I was suffering from anxiety and depression at the time, and did not want anything to do with this movie, which I feared might turn my pleasant Anthony Hopkins dreams into nightmares. Since in my recurrent dreams he lived in a nearby building, in my mental state the impact of this film on my imagination was the psychic equivalent of learning that one's neighbor is a serial killer. Even hearing his voice on TV in the distance could make me feel ill. I finally rented it a few years later, since I wanted to get over the irrational fear of it that had been burned into my psyche. Considering that the psychological subtext of the plot was about facing up to fears, that was very fitting indeed!

I did force myself to watch the Academy Awards on March 30, 1992, and saw Tony win. When he did so, he swept out his arms holding the Oscar statuette, exactly as I had seen him do in a hypnagogic image before falling asleep a few days before. Later I read in a biography that his wife of that time had this same vision, and also heard that when accepting the award he himself had a feeling of deja vu about winning. It must have been "in the air."

^from To Be the Best (1992)

I caught Part 2 of this relatively forgettable Barbara Taylor Bradford adaptation when it first aired on TV. Just as well, since when I saw it more recently, Part 1 turned out to be sheer tedium.

<^from Howards End (1992)

I saw Howards End when, having finally recovered from my emotional problems, I took an overseas trip to London around my 30th birthday in October of 1992. This was the first time I'd ever seen Anthony Hopkins on the big screen (I didn't get out much). I still have the Curzon Phoenix Cinema ticket stub -- 5 pounds, including VAT.

<^from Spotswood (1992)

While (or should I say whilst?) in London I also dragged my obliging companions along to see this obscure Australian flick at the Plaza at Picadilly Circus after seeing a poster for it in a Tube station. Because the ad featured Hopkins holding a large stop watch, our minds kept wanting to read the odd title as Sportswatch. The title was eventually changed to The Efficiency Expert so perhaps other people had the same problem.