Legendary British actor Anthony Hopkins, star of America’s hottest new show, on why he always plays men who never lose control
Anthony Hopkins plays Dr Robert Ford in Westworld
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Directed by Christopher Nolan’s brother, Jonathan Nolan, Westworld tells the story of amusement park robots that go rogue and start killing humans. Nolan describes this show, originally a movie written and directed by sci-fi writer Micheal Chrichton in 1973, as “the next chapter of the human story, in which we stop being protagonists”.
Anthony Hopkins, who we all loved and loathed as Hannibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs, plays the central character of Doctor Robert Ford, one of the original creators of Westworld, who both is in awe of the robots he has created and has a casual disregard for them. We spoke to him in an exclusive chat ahead of the show’s premiere on Star World Premiere HD this Tuesday.
Excerpts from an interview:
Are you based permanently in the US now?
Yes, I live in Malibu. I’ve been in America for 40 odd years. Time has gone by so fast, I can’t believe it — I came out here in 1973. I love it.
I like Americans too. They are terrific. But they are a bit crazy. There’s that mentality of, ‘I want to get things done now,’ you know?
I saw a cartoon in the New Yorker. There’s this American — you can see he’s American cause he’s got Pan-Am on his suitcase — and he’s sitting in an Ashram up in Tibet, with this little skeletal guru. And he’s like this: Yeah, okay, so what happens next? And the guru tells him: it takes many many lives to learn. And he’s like, but I’ll try and do it in 20 minutes.
What can you tell us about your character Dr Ford?
I get to play these very strange characters who are always in control, Which is completely against my nature. I just go with the flow now, and I love being out here. I can’t take anything too seriously.
With Dr Ford it is on a massive scale — he controls everything and he wants to perfect everything. Which means he’s mad. All I do is talk a lot – a lot of very highfalutin stuff about the bicameral mind.
Why do you think you are cast in these roles?
I have no idea. Maybe it’s coldness. I think maybe it’s the blank stare. But I don’t relish that — I’ve never been interested in control. I think most of our pain comes from trying to control everything. Or dominate. Dominate other people and dominate ourselves, terrorising ourselves. I started giving that up some time ago. I just said, oh, I don’t know.
The best piece of wisdom I can come up with is: I know nothing. I don’t know. I can have opinions, but I really don’t know.
What attracted you to the project?
Well, my agent phoned one day and said would you like to be in Westworld? I said, what, the old movie? She said, it’s HBO — and I hadn’t done television in years. They sent me the script and I said: ‘Play Doctor Ford? It’s very complicated.’
But I said I’d do it — and that was back in 2014. When people ask me, why did you become an actor, I say, well, it beats working, doesn’t it? And they say, what? Well, it beats working for a living. They say, why did you take this part? Well, nobody else will do it. It baffles them because they wanted me to give a controlled answer: Well, I did it because of the arc of the part and the narrative. But I said, I have no idea. And it’s not a pose — I mean it. It’s a very peculiar business, being an actor.
Are you a fan of sci-fi and dystopian stories in general?
I find any idea of utopia or dystopia pretty alarming. I mean, in the 20th century, many great ideas of utopias all caused so much bloodshed and horror.
I’m fascinated by the history of the 20th century, the Bolshevik revolution, Nazism and fascism rising in Italy. And the post war years too: the Kennedys in power in this country, Cuba. I remember clearly at the end of the last war, when Russians were our allies, and then there was a reveal of what a monster of tyranny that was, and then changing loyalties, changing ideologies.
My father was an extremely left wing Marxist, and so was his father. I was raised in that atmosphere. Gradually, the years have passed, and now I just think, oh well.
I hear so many opinions from people, but I know the only certainty is death. Some people believe that being a celebrity is going to ward off mortality, but it doesn’t do a thing at all. We can try to control everything, but there’s no control. That’s the good news: there is no control.
So we might as well stop worrying about it...?
Exactly, it’s a wonderful feeling. Good news. I can predict a great future. I predict the future of this country: uncertain. We can learn to embrace uncertainty.
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