The “rude, arrogant” director Anthony Hopkins called a “fucking idiot” in front of the crew
Most great actors spent their lives dealing with some kind of inner conflict, and for Anthony Hopkins, it was that he was a very angry man who decided to make a living in a profession where he hated most of the people working in it, which is hardly conducive to a good time.
These days, the two-time Academy Award winner is one of the industry’s most beloved veterans and will undoubtedly be remembered as one of the greatest actors to ever emerge from the United Kingdom. He hasn’t mellowed with age, though, because he still despises an awful lot of things about Hollywood.
To be fair, he’s always been that way, and Hopkins would be the first to admit he was even worse when he was battling alcoholism. Even when he was relative unknown, trying to make a name for himself in cinema after graduating from the stage, he told anyone who’d listen that he loved acting as much as he hated actors.
Despite kicking the booze in 1975, his temper remained. Almost a decade later, he dreamed of collaborating with the legendary David Lean on The Bounty, only to end up with Roger Donaldson instead. It was a pretty wayward set in general, with Mel Gibson getting his arse handed to him in a drunken brawl, but Hopkins was the only one who feuded directly and intensely with the director.
They didn’t start off on the best foot, not that Donaldson wanted to. Hopkins remembered that before they’d started production, he was warned: “I’m not interested in your track record, I don’t care if you’ve been in a play with Laurence Olivier, I’m going to come down hard on you, Tony.”
In response, Hopkins noted that he’d never had a problem putting a director in their place if they got on the wrong side of him: “I want to tell you that I’ve worked with John Dexter and some other right bastards in my life, so if you come on hard with me, you can get another actor.” Each man had made their position clear, and there was only one way things were going to go.
Describing Donaldson as a “rude, arrogant man,” the future Hannibal Lecter confirmed he had “terrible fights with him out in Tahiti, awful stand-up fights and rows,” which culminated in Hopkins calling him out in front of the entire cast and crew, which numbered around 200 people, all of whom were left in stunned silence by the star of The Bounty giving its director a verbal battering.
Producer Bernard Williams recalled that “about eight weeks into shooting, Tony finally blew up, calling Roger a ‘fucking idiot’ and many other things, too.” After bearing witness to Hopkins’ “terrible explosion,” he “told Roger to count to 100 and leave Tony to cool off,” which didn’t do much to smooth things over.
They didn’t kiss and make up before The Bounty had finished production, but they eventually did 20 years later, when they reunited and Donaldson helmed Hopkins’ The World’s Fastest Indian, this time with no quarrels between them.
