The actor Dennis Hopper was always “very envious” of: “Why am I never seeing these scripts?”
The biggest obstacle that Dennis Hopper faced throughout his career was usually Dennis Hopper, with the actor and filmmaker repeatedly proving himself susceptible to a spot of self-sabotage.
Drugs and alcohol were usually the culprit, but he’d already been exiled from mainstream Hollywood long before he became synonymous with the ‘New Hollywood’ era’s tales of excess and debauchery, with Henry Hathaway doing a stellar job of getting him blackballed by the major studios in the late 1950s.
A decade later, Hopper came roaring back to prominence with Easy Rider, and no matter what he accomplished in the following four decades, he knew that the counterculture classic would always be the defining movie of his career. He wanted more than that, though, and he didn’t think he ever got it.
There were several accomplished pictures, towering performances, and iconic moments, ranging from David Lynch’s Blue Velvet and Jan de Bont’s Speed to Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now and Tony Scott’s True Romance, but the legendary wild man, party animal, and hell-raiser still wasn’t satisfied.
He acted, he wrote, he directed, he produced, he painted, he blew himself up with dynamite, he got deported from Australia, he was almost killed by one of his co-stars, almost killed another one by accident, and wasted a fortune on narcotics, so he was always doing something, for better or worse.
As he got older, Hopper began to cast jealous eyes at the competition, and there was one actor in his age range that he always wanted to emulate. “I don’t feel that I’ve ever really done the great part,” he explained. “I don’t feel like I’ve ever directed the great movie, and I just feel that I’m just getting myself into the position where I may have the opportunity.”
Despite everything that he’d achieved, whether it was ushering in seismic changes in cinema or becoming the industry’s go-to psychotic villain, he still wasn’t happy with his lot. “I don’t feel I’ve ever really had the great role, and I don’t feel I’ve ever really been in the great movie,” he insisted, again. “I look at Anthony Hopkins, and I look at Remains of the Day, and I go, ‘Where is that part, and where is the movie like this that I could do/”
Hopper was only 18 months older than Hopkins, and they began their careers at around the same time, but as the Welshman cemented himself as a lauded, Academy Award-winning thespian who effortlessly segued from genre to genre, the former grew increasingly frustrated that he wasn’t being offered or afforded the same opportunities to show many strings were on his bow.
“Why am I never even seeing these kinds of scripts, or they never even come close to me?” he questioned. “Anthony Hopkins is doing part after part after part. I’m very envious.” The obvious answer is that they’re two completely different types of actor, and Hopkins didn’t carry the same baggage as Hopper, but the erstwhile Hannibal Lecter had the idealised career that he so desperately wanted.
