The one thing Anthony Hopkins hates about Hollywood: “It makes me want to throw up”
Out of all the British actors who have become Hollywood royalty – successfully making it big overseas – Anthony Hopkins is one of the most recognisable. Beginning his career in the 1960s with various theatre performances, the actor eventually made his film debut in 1968 with a Bafta-nominated role in The Lion in Winter. After a series of film roles throughout the 1970s split between America and his native Britain, he rose to further prominence with a performance in David Lynch’s acclaimed drama The Elephant Man.
Yet, it was arguably 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs that exposed Hopkins to a widespread mainstream audience for the first time, which unsurprisingly won the star an Academy Award for ‘Best Actor’. Hopkins’ performance as Hannibal Lecter, an intelligent serial killer and cannibal, was deeply impressive, cementing him as a truly magnificent actor.
From there, Hopkins continued to appear in more successful productions, including Howard’s End, The Remains of the Day, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Chaplin, Nixon, and Amistad. He lent his voice to How The Grinch Stole Christmas, reprised his role as Lecter in the 2001 movie Hannibal, played cinematic legends like Alfred Hitchcock (in the aptly titled Hitchcock), and made audiences weep with his moving turn in The Father.
Hopkins has had a successful career, and it is clear that he always goes for roles he is truly interested in, whether that be narrating a children’s movie or playing a terrifying villain. The actor isn’t a fan of pandering to people, choosing to remain as authentic as possible in the face of an industry that can be considered rather fake. It’s a tough industry to crack, where certain people in high positions assert a kind of dominance that most people fear standing up against. Say something bad about a specific person in Hollywood, and you could be in trouble – one bitchy comment could be enough to get you blacklisted by certain figures.
This is what Hopkins hates most about Hollywood, openly expressing his hatred for people who brazenly kiss each other’s backsides. He told Huffington Post, “You know, kissing the backside of the authorities that can make or break it; I can’t stand all that. I find it nauseating to watch and I think it’s disgusting to behold. People groveling around and kissing the backsides of famous producers and all that. It makes me want to throw up, it really does.”
He added, “It’s sick-making. I’ve seen it so many times. I saw it fairly recently, last year. Some great producer-mogul and everyone kisses this guy’s backside. I think, ‘What are they doing? Don’t they have any self respect?’ I wanted to say, ‘Fuck off.’”
Evidently, Hopkins has been in the business long enough to see straight through people, choosing not to go out of his way for people just so that they might give him a role in a movie. Emerging from a time when Hollywood looked rather different to how it does today, it seems as though the actor can’t wrap his head around how certain actors navigate the industry.
