Anthony Hopkins Interview, Fracture

Posted by: Sheila Roberts

MoviesOnline recently sat down with Anthony Hopkins to talk about his new film, the dramatic thriller Fracture, directed by Gregory Hoblit (Primal Fear) from a script written by Daniel Pyne (The Sum of All Fears, The Manchurian Candidate) and Glenn Gers. Hopkins portrays Ted Crawford, a meticulous structural engineer and scientist who specializes in fracture mechanics, analyzing aeronautical malfunctions and plane crashes. He prides himself on being able to spot even the smallest defect or weakness in any system, mechanical or otherwise. When he discovers that his beautiful younger wife, Jennifer (Embeth Davidtz), is having an affair, he plans the perfect murder.

Among the cops arriving at the crime scene is hostage negotiator Detective Rob Nunally (Billy Burke), the only officer permitted entry to the house. Surprisingly, Crawford readily admits to shooting his wife, but Nunally is too stunned to pay close attention when he recognizes his lover, whose true identity he never knew, lying on the floor in a pool of blood. Although Jennifer was shot at point blank range, Nunally realizes she isn’t dead. Crawford is immediately arrested and arraigned after confessing – a seemingly slam-dunk case for hot shot assistant district attorney Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling), who has one foot out the door of the District Attorney’s (David Strathairn, Good Night, and Good Luck) office on his way to a lucrative job in high-stakes corporate law.

But nothing is as simple as it seems, including this case, as the lure of power and a love affair with a sexy, ambitious attorney (Rosamund Pike, Pride and Prejudice) at his new firm compete with Willy’s fierce drive to win and threaten to quash his code of ethics. In a tense duel of intellect and strategy, Crawford and Willy both learn that a "fracture” can be found in every ostensibly perfect façade. When Crawford (Hopkins) is found innocent of the attempted murder of his wife (Davidtz), the young district attorney (Gosling) who is prosecuting him becomes a crusader for justice. Fracture is full of twists and turns that weave in and out of the courtroom as the pair try to outwit each other.

It took only one read for Hopkins to sign onto the project. "It’s a smart, sophisticated, well-written script,” explains Hopkins. "You don’t get many of those today. Being asked to participate was a stroke of luck.” But do not ask Hopkins about his character’s motivations – he’s quick to direct you elsewhere for an answer. "I’m not a film scholar, so I never analyze the ingredients of a good film. I never go into a character’s subtext. Ask the writer for the reasons why someone does something. I just let it emerge.”

"This was one of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had on a movie in a long time,” Hopkins continues. "The part is very wittily written. Crawford is like Iago, he’s got cards hidden up his sleeve. If it’s written well, it’s easy to play. I’ve played two criminals in my life, Hannibal Lecter and this guy. He’s a control freak. He’s fascinated by precision but that’s the very flaw in his nature. He likes to toy with people, he likes walking on the edge, and he’s a little too smart for his own good, which eventually undoes him.”

"The character of Crawford has all kinds of colors,” Gregory Hoblit says. "From being a cold sociopath, to a charmer, to a game player, to being funny, to being deadly. There aren’t many actors who can cover that territory with ease. Anthony’s an interesting guy; he doesn’t mind going to that dark center he has tucked away, and he’s able to convey bitterness more elegantly than any actor I know.” Given that Hopkins only appears in six or seven scenes for a total of about 25 minutes of the film, "the cumulative impact of those scenes is imperative,” explains Hoblit, emphasizing the actor’s impact. "His delivery of those scenes is what makes the movie.”

Anthony Hopkins is a fabulous guy and we really appreciated his time. Here’s what he had to tell us about his latest film and his upcoming projects:

Q: Do you just love playing these likeable killers?

ANTHONY HOPKINS: I've only played two. It's not a question of just playing killers. I've played lots of other roles. But this film I liked because the script was so good. It was different, but as good I think as Silence of the Lambs, and it's all to do with structure I think. I can't give you a direct answer. People say, "Why did you do this part?" And I usually say "money" or something like that. It's because- - I'll start again. When my agent sent me the script, he said, "I recommend you read this. Greg Hoblit's directing." I said, "Yeah, yeah, I know Greg." I'd seen Primal Fear and some others he'd done. Then I read the script and I phoned my agent back after page 35 and I said, "This is really good."

So I finished the script and I phoned him and said, "Well, if Greg wants me, I'd love to do it" because it's one of those scripts that you don't get very often. And I'm a fan of this sort of movie like Sleepers or Primal Fear, Presumed Innocent, Jagged Edge. Those things that keep you entertained, they're thrillers and that's what I liked about it. I can usually tell, this sounds weird, by the script, especially if it's been recommended and I read it and I look at it, even the way it's been set out. Even the kind of lineup of the dialogue and if there's not too much description, you know. If it's just minimal description or stage directions or film direction, I have a hunch that it's going to be good. Then I read this and I thought it was the best script I'd had since Silence of the Lambs. It's a very clean structure. It's very clear, concise, economic in its delivery and that's why I enjoyed it.

Q: That's more important to you than the character himself?

ANTHONY HOPKINS: It's all one. If a script is really well written, you don't need to -- well, I never like to rewrite because I'm not a writer, I leave that to the writer -- but when you feel good with the dialogue, and it's got moments when you think in your solar plexus, "This is really good," and that's what I felt about this. And it just happens to be that he's a killer. It's got nothing to do with anything else. It's just it came my way. Maybe they thought I'd be good at it because I played Hannibal Lecter, but I don't know. I met Greg Hoblit for breakfast one morning and after that, "So what do you think?" I said, "Well, it's the best script I've had in a long time so I really would like to do it." And that's the answer.

Q: Beyond just the general quality of the script, can you pinpoint a specific element of the script, or a line, or plot point that turned you on?

ANTHONY HOPKINS: It's the oddest things because it's like one single line that really got to me. It's just a simple line in the interview scene, the interrogation scene, which is one of the best scenes in the film as far as I'm concerned. It's the line when he says, he asks me a question and I give him a stupid answer. I give him a perverse answer. He says, "I'm not going to play games with you." I say, "Afraid you have to, old sport." I thought, "Yeah, that's it." It's very much like the Lector thing, all that stuff. The clever put downs, the sharp incisive kind of mind.

Q: So there's more of a relationship between these two people than just adversaries?

ANTHONY HOPKINS: Yeah, yeah. Well, it's also a formula kind of movie when you think of it because it's like the Levinson/Link movies, Columbo, the TV things. You'd always see this high powered man who commits the murder at the beginning, usually dressed in a business suit living in Bel Air and he commits this perfect murder. Then in comes this complete idiot, Peter Falk, in his dirty raincoat and his broken down car, "Ah, let me just, ah, yeah, yeah." It's a wonderful one formula. And you see this guy, Ryan Gosling who's a wonderful actor, his broken down car, his poor apartment and bad clothes, and he's always late for appointments and he's a mess. And yet I think the audience will like that because the guy's obviously very clever and very smart and relentless and believes in justice and gets his guy.

Q: Can you talk a little about the dance between yours and Gosling's character? Did you prepare for that because there’s a lot of intrigue and chemistry between the two of you?

ANTHONY HOPKINS: No, but the surprise was, he took me by surprise because the very first scene we did was the interrogation scene. What I think he was very smart in deciding to do, Ryan Gosling, was in the script, it's obviously in the script the way it's written, Crawford's always on top. He's always poking him in the eye, always upsetting him. In the script, I think it was written that Willy, Ryan Gosling's character, is kind of pushed off balance. Well, he didn't play it that way. He took all my stuff and dodged around it which gave me on that day, when the phone rings before the interview starts, oh, that's a surprise. I wonder what he’s up to as an actor? And what he was doing was he gave it much more of a dynamic, because it would be boring if it was just one man hitting a tennis ball and hitting somebody in the head with a tennis ball.

That's boring after about three minutes, so he was like a match for Crawford and he would duck and weave. Then that gave my person, Crawford, a more indelible motive and that is to really go after him and actually respect this young punk. It's like, "Yeah, this guy's quite clever. He's not taking what I've been throwing at him, so good." Maybe even beyond the film, maybe Crawford subconsciously sets an imperfection in it to see if this guy's smart enough to get it. So at the end when we reshot that scene, because there was a reshoot in there, when I got through the door and the police are out there -- I can't remember, I haven't seen the film myself yet, but I just thought it's like I think I remember, I don't know what it looks like -- but I just did, "Oh well, fair cop. He caught me." As if "Ah, good for him." And when he tries to get me with the tie again in the courtroom, "Ah, he's a smart kid this guy." But I'll go to jail, probably get lethal injection, capital punishment because I've killed my wife.

Q: If Crawford and Lector had a game of chess, who do you think would win?

ANTHONY HOPKINS: I think they'd be a match for each other. It's so funny how the formula is though. In Lector's case, his opponent is a young woman who's very smart, which challenges Lector's intellect, "this young woman's really, she's great. I like her. She's got guts." And with Crawford, it's a different personality. When we were filming it, it did cross my mind a few times, I thought, "This is a really juicy part." And I said to Greg one day, we're doing the scene, Billy Burke comes in, the cop, after I’ve killed my wife, I say "I shot my wife in the head" and I saw it on the playback monitor.

It was lit in a certain way and I said, "It's a bit close to Silence of the Lambs." And he said, "Yeah, maybe it is. We ought to adjust the lighting a bit." He said, "Do you mind?" I said, "It's okay, whatever." Because I don't want to go back to the old, I mean I've done Lector three times now. But it was fun. I’m hip that people compare it, but that's good. It's all right. Because they were both good, the first one was a very successful film. If they compare it, that's okay.

Q: But compare it in a good way, not in a derivative way?

ANTHONY HOPKINS: No, I don’t think people will – I don’t know. I can't tell what audiences decided.

Q: The audience reacts great to this film. That moment when he finds out that you’ve taken your time and money to have him checked out, the audience really went nuts for that. When you say you’ve had your PI investigate him.

ANTHONY HOPKINS: Oh, did they? When did you see it?

Q: Last night.

ANTHONY HOPKINS: Oh yeah, I was checking him out. That’s right. They liked that?

Q: They liked the whole film.

ANTHONY HOPKINS: Good.

Q: Do you have any behind the scenes story of the glass ball roller coaster?

ANTHONY HOPKINS: The Rube Goldberg? No, they were made by a German designer and then I think the studio, New Line, bought the rights to reproduce them. I suppose they're symbolic of the man's penetrating mind, but a lot of people on the set said they wanted them afterwards. I think Greg Hoblit decided he was going to have one of those machines. The studio said, "Would you want one?" I said, "No, I don’t want one.” I could’ve, but once you've seen it go around once, you think oh, okay." [Laughs]

Q: You’re also in Robert Zemeckis’s new film Beowulf which uses motion capture technology. How different or difficult was it for you to work in that style?

ANTHONY HOPKINS: It's weird because you go around with little bubbles all over your face. They put these little marks all over your face. It's okay. I don't know what the point of the exercise is, but I guess Bob Zemeckis is a good director and I think that's his obsession. That's his passion is this new photo whatever it's called. It's interesting. I haven't seen it yet. It takes them a long time to process it. I'm going to do some ADR on it next week I think. But I guess it's easier to shoot because- - actually, it's not easy to be in because you have to go through an hour of all this stuff on you, but then you have to take all of it off -- it's all stuck on with glue. And before each scene you have to have a full body scan.

You have to do this [arms out] and that [arms up] and then you have to turn around so the computers can take you all in but it's an ingenious process. Apparently, they really have made an advance since Polar Express, they've made some advance. I haven't seen it because it's not ready to see yet, but they put little beads all over the eyelids because they wanted to get the eyes to look alive. On The Polar Express, they hadn't quite figured that out so you're covered in all these things. You walk around in these jumpsuits and you feel ridiculous.

Q: But as an actor, did you have the same set of tools. Were you missing anything?

ANTHONY HOPKINS: Oh, you miss everything. You don't have anything. You just have- - say you have a cup or a mug or some sort of medieval thing, a drinking goblet. It's made of steel and it's all hollow. If there was a bottle, there'd just be a piece of steel construction with nothing in it and you'd have to do this and I don't know. It's weird.

Q: Aside from the technology, is the story a traditional retelling of Beowulf?

ANTHONY HOPKINS: It's a modernized version of it but it's set in its period. What seems to me so strange is that they designed costumes for it. So I remember going in and they put a beard on you and everything, huge cloaks and all that stuff. It's of the medieval period or dark ages really, 10^th century, whatever it was. Then they photograph you and put you through a computer and then you never see it again. That's it. But then they dress all that in later. So it seems to me, I don't get the purpose of it. But again, if I'm out of it, I guess… [Laughs]

Q: You've also directed a film, Slipstream. Can you tell us about that?

ANTHONY HOPKINS: No, I can't tell you anything about that. It is such a strange story. But I done it and we're getting a distribution deal for September. It's got a great cast of actors, John Turturro, Christian Slater. Really strange movie but I wrote it as a stream of consciousness really. I just wrote it and didn't even think I was going to get it done. I didn't even have plans to make it. Then I finished it and I showed it to someone and they said, "This is really good. It's weird."

So I sent it to Spielberg, I asked him if he would read it and he did and he said, "It's really good. You're going to have a bit of a problem marketing it because it's so odd," because I break all the rules of filming. I break all the rules of time and it's just fascinating doing the editing.

Q: As an actor, how do you feel about these sorts of thrillers like Fracture that build slowly with a certain styling that are a throwback to the movies of the 40s and 50s? They’re almost like a slow, steeped tea that gets more flavor as it goes on.

ANTHONY HOPKINS: I like them. I saw Sleepers on TV last night. I'd seen it the night before and I recorded it, I'd seen it before when it came out and I like the intrigue, the slow development. I really am a fan of that kind of movie and Primal Fear, Jagged Edge, Jeff Bridges. What was the other one, Presumed Innocent. And the end is such a surprise. I like them and I think audiences buy them because they want to be tricked. Audiences like being tricked or given the chance to see if they can work a puzzle. Some people say that they got this, some people didn't get it -- they were trying to figure out how the gun was misplaced and so on. I've watched movies over the last few years and some are good and some have big reputations, but sometimes I can't even see what's going on because there's so much busyness with the camera.

They're all in close-up all the time, you don't know what -- I saw a car chase in some film and yet I didn't know who was chasing who. It was so crazy. I thought, "Who cares?" Finally the whole thing has just been put in the wastepaper basket because it was so busy and clever, in a bad sense. Like let's get as much -- it's as if the directors and the studios don't believe anyone has got an attention span anymore which I think is a big false lie. People do have an attention span. If this film, I hope this film does well, but I think audiences are quite happy to sit there and let it unfold instead of this pandering to what I think the studio believes is substandard or subintelligence. They're going, "We've got to please the kids." Well, I don't think it is pleasing in the end because it's just such a rush. So I'm a fan of this sort of movie. I saw Sleepers night before last and I looked at it again last night. Really fine film.

Q: Do you know what you’re doing next? What’s your next project?

ANTHONY HOPKINS: I was supposed to be doing Hitchcock, playing Alfred Hitchcock. I better put on some weight. [Laughs] But it's about the making of Psycho, but it's not about the making of Psycho as such, but how Hitchcock felt such a failure all his life. He felt such a loser all his life. And he had a very troubled relationship with everyone. [He was] a very complex man, a very private, quiet man. There are all these rumors about his life and his relationship with his wife was- - I know nothing about the guy, but this script is a good script and I think we were supposed to be doing it in May, but then they pulled the script back again because they had to check with the Hitchcock estate. And also they wanted to rewrite it again, I don't know why. I hope they don't rewrite it out of shape because it was pretty good when I read it.

Q: There's a Dick Cavett interview of Hitchcock.

ANTHONY HOPKINS: Oh, I've seen that, yes.

Q: You and Ryan had an amazing chemistry as adversaries in this film. Were you familiar with his work? What do you think of him as a new, young actor?

ANTHONY HOPKINS: Oh, he's a wonderful actor. I'd seen him in The Notebook and that was the first time. When I talked to my agent, I said, "Who's playing the other guy?" He said, "I don't know. They're looking for someone, some actors they're looking for. Do you have any ideas?" I said, "I don't know. There's that wonderful actor from Notebook." He said, "Oh, Ryan Gosling?" I said, "Yeah." I'm not saying, I didn't get [Ryan hired.] I mean, I didn't say, "We have Ryan Gosling." But he did say to me one day, he said, "Thank you for putting that…" I said, "I didn't recommend." When we were making the film back- - well, I think it was Greg Hoblit said, "You find the actor to do the other part?" He said, "Yeah, Ryan Gosling." I said, "Oh! Oh good, okay." And he's very mercurial. To use the word intense is a disservice because people who are intense are boring usually. He's very thoughtful.

He's very bright and he was more concerned about getting the end of the film right than I was because I don't have that kind of analytical mind. Maybe I'm just getting lazy or old or something. But they were trying to figure out about this gun business so we did a version of it last year when we finished the film and I just wanted to go home. I said, "Well, why don't I just smash the Rube Goldberg thing to pieces?" so we did a scene where I just wreck the whole thing, just smashed it to pieces to get the gun. And when we did it, I thought, well, it was a pretty demonstrative exhibitionist kind of acting and he seemed to like it, but when they saw the film and I saw a rough cut of it, there was something missing. And then they had preview, test audiences where it tested very high except the thing was with the audiences they said the end was disappointing because they didn't want a spectacular ending.

So anyway, last year, just before the end of last year, I got a call from my agent. I was in South America and he said, "They want you to do a reshoot." I said, "Oh God, I've got to get my hair cut again." [Laughs] So I said, "Okay." So they sent me the new script and it was just terrific, and I think Ryan and Greg and a few others were the ones who really worked and focused on getting it right. So when I met Ryan back I said, "Well, thanks, you did a great job there because it's a much better ending." It's a bit like Presumed Innocent that it's a very quiet ending. He just pulls it all apart and I think that's terrific.

Q: Are you going to play Tolstoy?

ANTHONY HOPKINS: No, that all fell through. I don't know what happened to that. They postponed and it was going and then I said, "Look, I've got to get on with my life." I think Meryl Streep was going to do it and I think she pulled out of it basically because it was on and then it was off. There may be a film I'm doing with Morgan Freeman and Bill Macy. I'm just waiting for that too. And there's also a chance I may play the Wolfman in London in a movie with Benicio Del Toro. My agent says it's a great script but he hasn't sent it to me yet. He said he just wants to make sure that the deal is all in, but I play the Wolfman's father in Paris. A wonderful part.

Q: When we spoke to the cast of Bobby last year, the young actors said that one of the highlights was getting to work with you in the film.

ANTHONY HOPKINS: Oh, that's nice.

Q: What do you get when you work with younger actors like this?

ANTHONY HOPKINS: Well, I think I usually sometimes, not always, but sometimes if they're young actors, I've worked with a couple young actors and actresses and they may be a bit nervous. We do a scene and I say, "Is that the way you're going to play it?” And they say, "What?” Is that the way you're playing it?" They say, "Why?" I say, "Well, it's your career." [Laughs] And I usually get the directors, "Is that the way you see it?"

Q: I hear you bark a lot on set?

ANTHONY HOPKINS: Yeah, I bark. Yeah, it's just for fun, just to keep everyone happy because it gets pretty intense sometimes. People get too serious. It's only a movie. It's not the end of the world. So I bark like a dog just to entertain people. People say, "What's that?" Ryan liked my barking.

Q: He said it was pretty convincing?

ANTHONY HOPKINS: Yeah. "There's a dog in here." [Laughs]

"Fracture” opens in theaters on April 20^th. Below you can checkout a whole bunch of clips for this film.

Fracture Clip: Where I Belong	Fracture Clip: Weak Spot	Fracture Clip: Verbal	Fracture Clip: Old Sport	Fracture Clip: I Shot Her
Fracture Clip: Call me Later	Fracture Clip: A Machine	Fracture Trailer