The co-star left starstruck by Anthony Hopkins: “I was shaking and nervous”
Whether as an intellectual serial killer, a vampire slayer, a Shakespearean hero, or the king of the Norse Gods, Anthony Hopkins always cuts an impressive figure. The legendary actor has played some of the greatest characters, delivered some of the greatest lines, and starred in some of the greatest plays of all time. Now, even as he approaches his 90th birthday, he is still putting actors a quarter of his age to shame.
Early in his career, Hopkins shared dressing rooms with some of the stars he’d grown up idolising. He famously served as Laurence Olivier’s understudy in a number of theatrical productions, learning a few tricks from the fabled board-treader that would set him up well for later life. Once he had become a star in his own right, he ended up having the same awe-inspiring effect on the next generation that he had experienced in his own youth.
When interviewed by Pearl & Dean, Kerry Washington recalled the suite of emotions she experienced when she met the Welsh icon for the first time. “The first time that I worked with him, I was super nervous about meeting him because he’s one of my favourite actors of all time,” she revealed. “I ran into him at craft service and he, of course, was very calm but I was like shaking and nervous and didn’t know what to say to him. He was so kind and so sweet and I’m really grateful that he was so kind and so sweet because it was crazy embarrassing. I don’t get starstruck a lot but that was one for me.”
This encounter would have come on the set of Bad Company, a 2002 action-comedy featuring the unlikely pairing of Hopkins and Chris Rock. Directed by Joel Schumacher, the movie was initially set to be released in late 2001, but was pulled because of its unfortunate similarities to 9/11. Hopkins plays a CIA agent tasked with preventing a major terrorist attack on New York City. Scenes for the movie were even filmed inside the original World Trade Center. Washington plays the girlfriend of Rock’s character.
Their next collaboration came just a year later. Both Hopkins and Washington appeared in Robert Benton’s The Human Stain, an adaptation of the Philip Roth novel of the same name. Hopkins plays Coleman Silk, a disgraced university lecturer who teams up with a writer (Gary Sinise) to take revenge on his accusers. The movie, which also features Nicole Kidman, Ed Harris, and Washington in a very minor role, was deemed a failure by critics. The consensus was that, like most of Roth’s novels, The Human Stain was simply impossible to adapt for the screen.
It seems like this sort of thing happens to Hopkins all the time, as Natalie Portman also felt intimidated by him on the set of Thor. Washington would have been working with him only a decade or so removed from his career-defining turn as Hannibal Lecter, so it’s completely understandable that she felt such a sense of awe when meeting him for the first time.
Luckily for Washington, Hopkins seems like the nicest man ever. Most accounts of him from later in his career paint him in the best possible light. As for his younger, wilder days, that’s a story for another time.
