The acting technique Anthony Hopkins picked up from Gregory Peck: “I apply it to everything I do”
Very few actors have come along and brought something completely new to acting that nobody has ever done before, allowing modern greats to pick and choose from the past and apply it to their own approach. Anthony Hopkins is undoubtedly a legend, and he learned a thing or two from the legends who came before him.
He sat under an invaluable learning tree very early on, with Hopkins cutting his teeth as a stage actor under the tutelage of Laurence Olivier, unquestionably one of the best to ever do it. It would be impossible not to absorb the knowledge being dispensed, and it served the Welshman very well as he set about achieving his own greatness.
Katharine Hepburn is another of the storied ‘Golden Age’ figures who gave Hopkins important words to live by, which is the sort of education that only an idiot would pass up. The two-time Academy Award winner may have his own set of tricks and tics that aid his personal approach to acting, but a lot of it as amalgamated from things he’s either seen or been told.
Ironically, as a respected veteran, Hopkins is now the guy people like to steal from. Gary Oldman, himself a generational talent, saw fit to copy one of the elder statesman’s performances and use it to his advantage, but the cyclical nature of imitation and flattery has always been part and parcel of the business.
Along with his acclaimed dramatic performances, Hopkins is also no stranger to the paycheque gig, with one of them even lighting the touchpaper on his recent resurgence. However, sometimes he knows there’s no point in trying too hard depending on the circumstances, which is where Gregory Peck came in particularly handy.
“I try to apply it to everything I do: no acting required,” he told The New Yorker. “On Thor, you have Chris Hemsworth, who looks like Thor, and a director like Kenneth Branagh, who is so certain of what he wants. They put me in armour; they shoved a beard on me. Sit on the throne; shout a bit. If you’re sitting in front of a green screen, it’s pointless acting it. Gregory Peck was doing Moby Dick, and one of the props guys found his script on the set. He opened it up, and Gregory Peck had written on a certain page, ‘NAR.'”
John Huston’s 1956 adaptation of the famed novel features a powerhouse performance from Peck, but evidently not one that forced him to plumb the depths of his limitless talent. “He said, ‘No acting required. You just look at the sea, and that’s it,'” Hopkins recalled. “And that’s true.”
When performance isn’t the most important part of a production he’s working on, Hopkins merely channels the spirit of Peck and remembers that he’s under no obligation to pull his work straight out of the top drawer.
