Movies keep on coming for 'lazy' Sir Anthony Hopkins
HE may be turning 75 at the end of this year — but Sir Anthony Hopkins won't be putting his feet up.
As well as playing the lead in new movie Hitchcock he has more than just a few challenging roles to get his teeth stuck into.
But his box office triumphs may not have seen him involved if directors hadn't chased him for the roles.
The Taibach baker's son — who won an Oscar for his performance in the Silence of the Lambs — has revealed that he usually waits for the scripts to come to him, claiming he is "too lazy" to pursue the perfect film roles.
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He said the role of legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock was offered to him several years ago.
"It came along about seven or eight years ago, with one director attached, and then that fell apart," he said in an interview with Total Film Magazine.
"Then about a year ago my agent called and said 'Hitchcock is back'.
"I met the director Sacha Gervasi, and he seemed to have such unbridled enthusiasm about it that I said: 'OK, let's give it a whirl'.
"I guess my saying: 'Let's have a go' gave it the green light. But I never pursue anything — I'm too lazy."
Hitchcock, which is based on the making of the 1960 horror film Psycho, also stars Oscar-winner Dame Helen Mirren as the director's wife Alma Reville and Scarlet Johansson as Psycho's damsel in distress Janet Leigh.
Jessica Biel will play Vera Miles, who was the film's heroine.
The Los Angeles-based award- winning legend said he looks for "simplicity" when choosing movie scripts.
He said: "I think it's just the simplicity of it, if it's a good writer like Peter Morgan, if the dialogue seems manageable or if the language of the script is human and not artificial.
"You get some scripts that are so stretched, and I avoid those."
Next year will be another busy year for the actor as he has signed up to play Methusaleh in the Biblical epic Noah starring Russell Crowe.
It was revealed on director Darren Aronofsky's Twitter site that Hopkins has signed on to play the role.
Hopkins is also due to film spy spoof Red 2 in Montreal this year with Catherine Zeta-Jones, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich and Bruce Willis.
He will also return to his role as King of the Norse Gods Odin in Thor 2 with Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman.
Hopkins's portrayal of Hannibal Lecter was recently featured in a rundown of the greatest TV and film characters of all time in a survey by US magazine Entertainment Weekly.
He caught the acting bug after he was sent to Port Talbot YMCA to learn to play snooker. Instead the youngster noticed a stage play being rehearsed and decided he wanted in.
In 1960 Hopkins made his first professional stage appearance at the Palace Theatre, Swansea with Swansea Little Theatre's production of Have A Cigarette.
gill.roberts@swwmedia.co.uk
Comments
by maxmin
Wednesday, July 18 2012, 12:07PM
“Which should tell you something about how the Welsh treat their successful people!”
by arnoldlane
Wednesday, July 18 2012, 9:28AM
“Now an American citizen.”