“The greatest film actor” Dennis Hopper ever witnessed
Across a truly remarkable career in the film industry, Dennis Hopper left an eternal mark of quality on Hollywood that continues to be witnessed to this day. A maverick of American cinema, both on and off the screen, Hopper lived a life of genuine rebellion, leading to a catalogue of work that simply jumps off the screen.
As both an actor and a director, Hopper excelled, whether in his early directorial work like Easy Rider, a true hallmark of counterculture film, or his bizarre and surreal effort in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet, Hopper transcended the nature of the film industry figure by pushing the limits of the medium to the nth degree.
However, even the greatest of actors have their heroes, and Hopper is no stranger to having a deep-seated admiration for one figure from within the film industry who was widely considered one of the greatest to ever grace the screen. Hopper once echoed this thought when discussing the influence that Marlon Brando had on his own career in the film industry.
“I have many deep feelings about Brando,” Hopper once said. “He’s the greatest film actor that I’ve ever seen, hands down, and I knew that when I was in my teens.” Hopper then pointed out the other actor alongside Brando, who left the deepest impression on him as a performer, noting, “Between Montgomery Clift and Marlon Brando, they just changed my whole life as an actor.”
Hopper admitted that prior to watching Brando and Clift, he had been a “very dramatic Shakespearean actor” in the style of Orson Welles, but things changed once he saw his new acting heroes on screen for the first time as a teenager.
“When I was 13,” he said, “In one week, I saw A Place in the Sun with Montgomery Clift in it, and I saw Brando in Viva Zapata! and those two movies changed my entire way of thinking about film and about acting. I had to rethink everything. They were so subtle and so beautiful.”
Viva Zapata! is the 1952 American western movie directed by Elia Kazan, starring Marlon Brando, Jean Peters and Anthony Quinn, and written by John Steinbeck from the 1941 Edgcomb Pinchon book Zapata the Unconquerable. The film tells a fictionalised story of the Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, from his poor upbringing to his rise to power in the early 20th century.
Going on to express his admiration for Brando in general, Hopper noted, “He had great technique, he was a great technician, but also he had a presence on screen that was – he had such magnetism.” Hopper was, of course, fortunate enough to work with the legendary actor on Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam War film Apocalypse Now. However, the pair had not quite met eye to eye during the film’s production.
“And then personally, meeting him was one thing,” he admitted, “Working with him on Apocalypse Now was another thing. We had a lot of problems together; he refused to be on set at the same time that I was. I like to think that he was doing me a favour.” Brando likely knew what a great fan Hopper was and didn’t want such admiration and respect for Marr, either his or his co-star’s performances.
Check out the clip of Hopper discussing his love for Brando below.
