Shirley MacLaine: the actor Anthony Hopkins hated working with
By his own admission, Anthony Hopkins was a nightmare in the early part of his career, with a combination of alcohol and self-loathing creating the unfortunate combination of a hard-drinking actor riddled with doubts and insecurities.
As far back as the late 1960s, it was clear Hopkins struggled with his chosen profession. Not in a performative sense, because he was almost immediately singled out as a potential generational talent, but for the fact he failed to reconcile his love for acting with his hatred for actors.
It’s an oxymoronic situation for anyone to find themselves in: Hopkins referred to himself with disdain as one of the overpaid, ego-stroking thespians who had an easy ride in life compared to the working-class background he was born and raised in, yet he couldn’t imagine ever doing anything else.
Matters were further exacerbated by his alcohol dependency, which reached a head in December 1975 when he woke up in a hotel room in Arizona with absolutely no idea how he’d gotten there, where he’d been the night before, or what he may or may not have done during the drunken escapades of which he had no recollection.
From that moment on, he hasn’t touched a drop. That didn’t mean he was automatically bringing nothing but sunshine and roses to set, though, especially when working with people who rubbed him the wrong way. Hopkins had only been sober for a couple of years when he made the romantic dramedy A Change of Seasons with Shirley MacLaine, and for whatever reason, she pissed him off royally.
A famously forceful personality in her own right, Dirty Harry director Don Siegel admitted that “it’s hard to feel much warmth for her” after they collaborator on Clint Eastwood’s Two Mules for Sister Sara, describing her as “very, very hard” to work with. Her reputation preceded her to a certain extent, but Hopkins still wasn’t prepared.
The animosity between the two should have theoretically played into the film’s hands, though, with Hopkins and MacLaine playing a married couple who decide the best way to deal with their extramarital strife is to spend a weekend at a ski resort with their affair partners. However, A Change of Seasons was a bust, and Hopkins even made a bit of unwanted history by making the ‘Worst Actor’ shortlist at the first-ever Razzie Awards.
In the aftermath, he branded MacLaine as his least favourite co-star ever and the most obnoxious actor he’d ever shared a set with. For her, the feeling was mutual: “I didn’t like him either,” she told The New York Post, albeit with a caveat. “But he was on the wagon at that time and it was hard on him.”
Needless to say, partnering a recovering alcoholic with somebody he openly despised and having them spend countless hours in close proximity every day for weeks on end wasn’t something either Hopkins or MacLaine were keen to replicate.
