Hopkins' proof of life

When he was younger, Sir Anthony Hopkins admits he was “arrogant and angry”. He thought all directors were “idiots” and he butted heads with many of them. He even walked off stage once at the National Theatre in London during a production of Macbeth. “If someone didn’t like what I was doing, I left,” he said. He was considered difficult and demanding and he only became testier with age.

At the recent Venice International Film Festival however, Hopkins was a changed man. He smiled, he joked…was age finally working its mystical wonders on the talented thesp? Perhaps Hopkins hit it on the head when he said he had, "nothing left to prove". When he signs on to a project these days it’s because "it’s something special". Proof is just such a project.

Based on David Auburn’s Pulitzer Prize winning play, the film reunites director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) and Gwyneth Paltrow after their successful run at the Donmar theatre in London. Hopkins plays a brilliant but unstable mathematical genius whose daughter Catherine (Paltrow) puts her own life on hold to look after him in his final delusional years. After her father’s death Catherine begins to worry that not only does she share her father’s predisposition for numerical brilliance, but madness as well. Jake Gyllenhaal is the former student of Catherine’s father who stirs up trouble and Hope Davis plays her bossy older sister.

"I was drawn to it," says Hopkins with a shrug, "because I’m fascinated by physicists and science but I could never get maths as a kid, so I was intrigued by this and why people become obsessed. And I was only on the movie for about 10 days, so it was no big sweat you know."

No hassle, no fuss, no sweat is Hopkins mantra nowadays. He finds reading scripts "a chore", avoids
“responsibility” (lead roles) and looks for projects where he’s not required to be away from his Malibu pad for more than a few days at a time.

Just ask Madden who had “a hell of a time getting Tony to read the script,” he recalls with a laugh. “I’d ask and ask and ask and finally I was told that he wasn’t keen to do any acting at the moment, he just wanted to walk on the beach. But then his agent said to him, you should read this thing and he started to read it and couldn’t stop.”

His new laissez faire attitude is thanks to his third wife, Colombian born antiques dealer Stella Arroyaye, whom he married three years ago.

“Life is good,” says the actor. “I’m going to be 69 this year. I’m getting up there now. I look in the
mirror and I see the lines, but I don’t care it’s a good time because mortality is the great rescuer, it
finally takes you out of everything, and that makes life good.”

It wasn’t always the case however.

Born in Wales, Hopkins fell in love with acting as a teenager. By the time he was 24 he was Sir Laurence Olivier’s understudy and one of the lead actors at the National Theatre in London. He made his film debut at 30, playing Richard Lionheart alongside Peter O’Toole and Katherine Hepburn, and received the first of many BAFTA nominations. But Hopkins is the first to admit that he was “very unhappy”.

“I drank,” he says matter-of-factly. “I was cocky. I thought I knew it all.”

Despite his “destructive behaviour” he continued to clock up numerous awards over the next three decades including an Oscar for Silence of the Lambs in 1991.

When asked if he has any desire to perform on stage ever again – after all he’s classically trained and it’s where he began his career - Hopkins gasps slightly horrified at the suggestion.

“God no, it’s too serious. It’s like being in prison for me and I admire people that can do that but I
can’t do it anymore. These days I’d rather live my life and do a bit of acting in between. I play piano
and that’s my love and I read and I paint and I’ve got a pretty full creative life. And so acting is
something I do as a fill in. I use to be a bit obsessed about it, but not anymore."

Proof, however, was simply, “too good to ignore” he says.

“It was a compact part and I enjoyed that and that’s what I liked about working with Emilio Estevez on Bobby (there is no Australian release date for this film as yet) and Roger Donaldson on The Worlds Fastest Indian. They’re not big spectacular movies and I think there’s something satisfying there.”

The other attraction was Paltrow.

“I knew her mother,” he says. “I’d worked with her and they’re both very professional and I like that.
Gwyneth’s an extraordinary actress but she’s ordinary, you know. She comes on set does her job and goes home and there’s no fru fru, there’s no starry stuff. And it sounds like gushy Hollywood stuff, but she is the best I’ve worked with, she and Jodie Foster."

"You know acting is just common sense," he continues. "There’s nothing special about it. You learn your lines and you do it. When I was younger I use to take it much more seriously. And when you’re young you can’t enjoy it because you’re so intent on getting to the Oscars or getting to Hollywood.”

Hopkins of course did both and almost “destroyed” himself in the process.

“I’ve been very lucky,” he says matter-of-factly. “I’ve had my problems in the past, but you move on. I still enjoy acting but I enjoy it probably more now because it’s easier, there’s no expectations, nothing to prove. And what attracts me now are these independent films. Because when you go on the set of a larger film nowadays I don’t know what the hell's going on. There’s lots of noise and no one has a clue. But with people like John Madden, you know what you’re doing and that’s a good feeling. So I look for that. I don’t want to do big movies anymore.”

Gaynor Flynn

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Sir Anthony Hopkins - interview

Films in release this month: Proof and The World's Fastest Indian