Fresh Air - Film Icons: Molly Ringwald / Jodie Foster / Anthony Hopkins

Episode Date: August 27, 2024

We continue our Classic Films and Movie Icons series with two performers who gained fame as kids: Breakfast Club actor Molly Ringwald and Freaky Friday actor Jodie Foster. We'll also discuss Foster's Oscar-winning role as an FBI agent in The Silence of the Lambs and hear from her co-star who played serial killer Hannibal Lector, Anthony Hopkins.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for this podcast and the following message come from the NPR Wine Club, which has generated over $1.75 million to support NPR programming. Whether buying a few bottles or joining the club, you can learn more at nprwineclub.org slash podcast. Must be 21 or older to purchase. This is Fresh Air. I'm Tanya Mosley. As we continue our series on classic films and movie icons, my next guest became the face of Gen X angst in her teens. Molly Ringwald grew to fame in the 80s with films like 16 Candles, The Breakfast Club, and Pretty in Pink. Ringwald is also a singer, starting at a young age with her dad's group, the Fulton Street Jazz Band. I spoke to Ringwald earlier this year.

Molly Ringwald, welcome to Fresh Air. Thank you for having me. It's an honor. Do you like working with the same director, producers over and over again? I mean, you had this experience in working with John Hughes, the late filmmaker for the movies that were iconic in the 80s, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Sixteen Candles. It almost feels like maybe it's like following a boss from job to job in a way. I really love working with the same people as long as I like the people, as long as they're good. And, you know, if I have a positive experience, yeah. I mean, I stopped working with John after, you know, the three movies that I did with him. I was supposed to do one more, and then it didn't end up happening. Some kind of wonderful. of Wonderful, which was directed by Howie Deutsch, who also directed Pretty in Pink. And he asked me to do it, but I didn't. Because at that point, I was really worried about, you know, people never seeing me in another project. So that was my feeling was that I had to work with somebody else because I was going to get typecast. But you know what? I got typecast anyway, so I should have just kept working with him.

Well, I mean, I want to talk to you a little bit about that because you were the poster child for a generation. You were on the cover of Time magazine. You were a household name. But you've done so much more since then. How do you reconcile or deal with the fact that for a certain generation of people, you will always be seen as a teenager? I don't know. It sort of depends on the day. You know, there's been times where I've been really frustrated by that. I feel like people always think that I'm younger than I am or older than I am. Really? The older is interesting. Well, older just because, you know, I've been around for so long, you know, and I also started really young, you know. A lot of times people, you know,

I'm the same age as a lot of people that became famous in the 90s, but they'll think that I'm older because I was famous in the 80s. Yes, that makes sense. Yeah, so I feel like those films are always, they're iconic and they're special. I don't like to use the word iconic because I feel like it's overused, but they really are. Those films are really iconic. I want to actually play a clip from Pretty in Pink, which came out in 1986, because you've written quite a bit about your experiences

during that time period in working with John Hughes and also just reflecting back on the time period as we move forward in time, especially during the Me Too movement. In this clip that I'm about to play, this is from Pretty in Pink. You played a high school senior, Andy Walsh, who lives with her working class father in a Chicago suburb. One of the rich, popular kids, Blaine, played by Andrew McCarthy, falls for you and eventually asks you out to the prom before pulling away at the last minute after being pressured not to date you by one of his friends, played by James Spader.

So in this scene, your character Andy confronts Blaine about why he's ignoring her. Let's listen. I called you three times and I left messages. Yeah. Well, I didn't get in. My family, they're very responsible about that stuff, you know. I waited for you this morning. Yeah? Where?

Parking lot. I saw you, and I thought that you saw me. No. What about prom, Blaine? Andy, I'm having a bad day. Can we talk later? No. What about prom? Come on. Why don't we just meet after school talk later no what about prom what would just mean after school no what about come on just say what just say it I want to hear you say it Andy please all right I want to hear you say it a month ago I asked somebody else, and I forgot. You're a liar! You're a filthy f***ing don't-go-liar!

You didn't have the guts to tell me the truth! Just say it! I'm not lying. Tell me! What? Tell me! What do you want to hear? Just tell me!

What? You're ashamed to be seen with me. No, I am not. You're ashamed to go out with me. You're afraid. You're terrified that your great-grandchildren are through! Just say it! That was a scene from the 1986 cult classic Pretty in Pink.

I was very young when I saw this film, Molly. And I still, I still at that scene, it takes me back to high school and rejection in that same way. I know. It actually makes me emotional. It does, huh? It does because I feel for her. And I also can't help but hear my kids in it. That's what I really love about. I mean, I have written extensively about the issues that I have with certain elements of the films and, you know, what I don't agree with and the elements that don't age well. But the fact that he would write a movie, that John would write, that John Hughes would write a whole film, you know, about a girl getting uninvited to prom and how huge that is, you know, in the life of a teenager, that is huge. And of course, hearing myself, I hear my younger voice, and it takes me back. You actually watched, it was The Breakfast Club with your daughter several years ago.

Yeah, I did. Yeah. What have been your kids' reaction to seeing this younger version, and also playing what you say John Hughes really captured, the realities of a young person? Well, I played it for my now 20-year-old daughter when she was 10, which was really, I think, too young to watch The Breakfast Club. But all of her friends had seen it and, you know, she didn't want to watch it at a slumber party. She didn't want to watch it with someone else. She wanted to watch it with me.

So we did watch it, and I ended up doing a piece on that experience for This American Life. This American Life, yeah. And it was really interesting to watch it with her and what she got out of it because, you know, at the age of 10, she, of course, there was a lot of stuff that went over her head, merc at the time, you know, we were having a hard time with, you know, I was having a hard time with, you know, making her do her homework and feeling like, you know, oh, come on, do that. You know, I wanted her to be a certain kind of student. So it was it was really an incredible experience to be able to have that conversation and actually feel like it changed my relationship with her. And it changed my way of parenting, basically. It changed your way of parenting. You were able to have language based on that. That movie gave you language.

Yeah. And, you know, also when I watch the movies now, of course, I'm very curious about the parents because the parents are really, they're not seen. You only hear about the parents from what the kids feel. But you don't know what the situation is at home. I mean, all of them feel like they're being either neglected or misunderstood or outright abused. You know, as John Bender's character played by Judd Nelson is physically abused by his father. So yeah, that was a really interesting experience and also pretty surreal. But it took a lot out of me. And I knew I was going to have to watch the movies again with my now 14-year-old twins. And it took me, you know, a long time to feel like I could do it again.

And we just watched the movies about, I don't know, three weeks ago. Did you have similar insights? They loved the movie. They didn't take out their phones once, which was incredible. It's a big deal. Yeah. I mean, I was looking. I mean, the phones were there and I was like, how long is it going to take for them to pick up the phones? And they didn't.

But it was also interesting because they are older, you know, the, you know, sexual harassment that my character Claire experiences, you know, which she is. She's harassed by John Bender the whole time. You know, that really did not resonate with them. They could not figure out why I went with him in the end. It was really sort of confusing. Like, they were just bewildered. And it didn't seem strange to me that she goes with Bender in the end, which is interesting that that doesn't seem strange. I mean, I had a great relationship with my father, I, you know, who passed away a couple years ago. So there's really no reason why that should have

been normalized for me. But it was this idea that, oh, if somebody treats you badly or, you know, isn't complimentary or whatever, that that should be the person that you go for. But strangely, it was. And that's just not the case anymore. I thought it was just really interesting, these questions that you pose to yourself and to the audience in your New Yorker piece in 2018, where you wrote, how are we meant to feel about art that we both love and oppose? What if we are in the unusual position of having helped create it? What answers or thoughts have you actually come to about where those movies sit in our culture, especially now having these experiences with your children?

Yeah, I do love the movies, and I'm really glad that I made them. It's not black or white. You know, those movies are not perfect, but there is so much good in them. And there are also things that are not good or there's things that have changed. The lack of diversity bothers me in those movies. Certainly the sexual politics bother me, but they were movies of a time. To me, that is one of the dangers of this desire to erase the past. I don't personally believe that you can erase the past, but you can look at it and you can debate and you can talk about it. And I believe that talking about it and understanding it is what sets us free, not trying to erase it. I want to talk briefly about other aspects of your career because you're a writer, you're an actor. Of course, we know this about you,

but you also are a singer. And I read that some of your first memories were singing with your father on stage. I want to play a clip of you at six years old singing Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight with your father and his group, the Fulton Street Jazz Band. Let's listen. And just drive away the blues. When you hear that music start to play. Tap your feet and start to step that way. And when you get the rhythm, you want to shout hooray. It'll be a hot time in your town tonight. My baby. When you hear those bells go ding-a-ling.

All join round and gayly you must singyou-mah-sing-a When the first is through In chorus I'll join in The hot time in your town tonight That was Molly Ringwald at six years old performing Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight with her father's jazz band. That song was a real traditional jazz song. And it's very emotional for me because, yeah,

I performed with my dad since I was three. And he passed away a couple years ago. I'm so sorry. Thank you. And he was a really incredible person. And I performed with him for my whole life. And not only did I perform with him, but we had an incredible connection. He was a really amazing, he was an amazing father and an incredible musician. And, yeah, it's hard. I miss him a lot. Yeah. I mean, I can feel that. And I know you've talked quite a bit about your father's influence. I think you called him a big fish in a small pond as a jazz musician. He was very well-respected.

He was beloved. He was not just well-respected, but he was beloved. Was it natural for you and your siblings to perform with him and his band? That was something that was just a natural family occurrence for you guys to sing together? It was something that I did. My sister and my brother. But so I was the fourth kid, and there was something in the way that I, I guess, babbled in the crib or something that she said, this is different. She's singing. And she was the one who told my father that she thought that I was a singer. And so that's when we started to work together.

And that was really kind of a bond that we had. That was like our special bond. Your father was also visually impaired. And I find from personal experience that children in my life with parents who are deaf or blind have a certain maturity and emotional intelligence that seems to serve them well in life. And I was just wondering if you see that in yourself.

I do. I mean, it's really hard for me to have anything to compare it to because he's the only father that I had. But I definitely think that he gave me an eye for detail i i do feel like i was whenever i was around my father especially when we would watch movies or we would go anywhere i feel like i i would notice things and i was always looking for things to to tell him um you know and i was kind of like his eyes in a way and And I kind of prided myself on that. He was somebody, I was somebody that he really liked to watch movies with because I was really good at explaining things. You all would watch movies together and you'd be the narrator. That's right. That's right. And I do feel like it gave me a certain emotional maturity. It was also just different, you know. I think my dad wasn't only did all the driving. And, you know, we would have

family dinner together, and then my father would go to work, and he would work all night. You know, when I was growing up, he was a working musician, did piano bar and did, you know, sometimes my father would work seven days a week. And we never went on vacation. I think we took one family vacation together because my dad was always working. You kind of sit in the middle of these two things, now you watching your daughter as an actor. What kinds of advice do you give her? I try to give her, I say give her advice.

I mean, it's hard, you know, with your kids because, you know, she and my other kids, they're going to have to discover things for themselves. You know, Matilda has been passionate about acting. You know, she's wanted to act since she was a kid like me. And my husband and I made the choice not to allow her to be professional. And I guess the advice that I've given her is just to learn how to act. We have given her acting lessons. Matilda has fantastic taste in movies. I mean, she's always had really great taste in movies, but we'll sit and we'll watch movies and we'll talk about, you know, what makes them good and what makes particular performances. I mean, we'll watch, you know, like Gandolfini, you know, James Gandolfini and the Sopranos,

and we'll watch monologues and we'll stop and go back and, you know, and talk about what makes that so good and so powerful. But it's also a really hard business. So I've talked about that too, because just because you're a talented actor doesn't mean that you can be successful in this career. They're almost like two different things. And it's hard because, you know, in order to be an actor, a good actor, you have to be a really emotional person and be able to access that emotion. But also being a very emotional sensitive person is not, it's not very easy to be in a business that where you're rejected a great deal of time. So, you know, those are issues that we talk about. Molly Ringwald, I really enjoyed this conversation. Me too. Thank you so much. Thank you. And I also didn't say, too, that Fresh Air was one of my father's favorite

shows. He, like, all the time, he was like, when are you going to do that, Fresh Air? You know, he would, you know, if there's a heaven somewhere, my dad is definitely smiling. I spoke with Molly Ringwald earlier this year. When we come back, we'll hear from another film icon who also started out as a child actor, Jodie Foster. I'm Tanya Mosley, and this is Fresh Air. T's and C's apply. This message comes from Wondery and T-Boy. The Best Idea Yet is a new podcast about the untold origin stories of the products you're obsessed with and the people who made them go viral. Listen to The Best Idea Yet wherever you get your podcasts. What's happening on NPR Podcasts? More neighborhoods and more perspectives.

The more of the world that you hear, the more you hear the world as it really is. NPR Podcasts. More voices. All ears. Find NPR wherever you get your podcasts. NPR brings you the updates you need on the day's biggest headlines. The Senate narrowly passed the debt ceiling bill that will prevent the country from defaulting on its loans. Stories from across the world. Knowing how to forage and to live with the land is integral to Amis culture. And down your block.

From CPR News, this is Colorado Matters. And you can find all of that and more in your pocket. Download the NPR app today. Jodi Foster has been in the public eye since she was three years old as a copper-toned girl on TV commercials. At 12, she was nominated for an Academy Award for her role as a child sex worker in Martin Scorsese's 1976 film Taxi Driver. Foster has had an illustrious career as an actor and director, winning two Academy Awards for her roles in The Accused and Silence of the Lambs. Terry spoke with Foster in 2002 and asked her about taking on challenging roles from a young age. When you were 12 and a half and got the part in Taxi Driver, was your

mother afraid of what you'd be exposed to playing a child prostitute? Well, you know, first of all, I had been an actor since I was three years old, so I had a long body of experience. And my mom really took me to all sorts of movies and took me to R-rated movies whenever she could. And, you know, we talked a lot about politics and we talked about deeper things. And I grew up in Hollywood, so I was exposed to it all over the place. I knew the work of Martin Scorsese and knew what an artist he was and had seen Mean Streets and had also done Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore with him. So I don't really think it was that big of a consideration. It was a consideration, for example, for the Board of Education. And at that time, they really wanted to know that I would not be

emotionally damaged by playing this part. So they brought in a, or actually my lawyers brought in a psychologist to decide, I suppose, decipher after an hour of meeting me to decipher whether I would be, you know, entirely damaged by my atmosphere. Well, how the heck did they figure that out? I mean, what did they do to test your psychological health? They asked me a lot of questions like, do you like Chinese food?

You know, things like that. I have a very fond memory of my therapy session at 12, and it really was pretty boring. Let me just play a scene from this film. Okay. In this film, Travis Bickle, played by Robert De Niro, wants to rescue you from a life of prostitution. He's just kind of taken you as a cause. You know, you're a 12 and a half year old kid or a 13 year old kid who's being sold by a pimp played by Harvey Keitel. And so De Niro goes to Keitel and buys some time with you, not to have sex with you, but to convince you to let him rescue you from this life.

So here you are in a room together for the first time. He wants to change your life. You want to give him his money's worth because he just bought some time with you. Let's hear an excerpt of that scene. What's your name? Easy. Well, that's not any kind of name. That's easy to remember. Yeah, but what's your real name? I don't like my real name. Well, what's your real name? Iris. Well, what's wrong with that? That's a nice name. That's what you think.

No, don't do that. Don't do that. Don't you remember me? I mean, remember when you got into a taxi? It was a check-in taxi. You got in and that guy Matthew came by and he said he wanted to take you away. He pulled you away. I don't remember that. You don't remember any of that? No. Well, that's all right. I'm going to get you out of here. Taxi Driver is such an extraordinary movie. I mean, it's at the top of or near the top of so many people's lists, and so many of us have seen it over and over again.

I'm thinking, you know, at the age of 12 1⁄2, to work with Scorsese and De Niro and Keitel, you know, gee. It really changed my life. At that time, I had made many more movies than either one of them had. Oh, God, that's so amazing. But I had played mostly, you know, people used to ask of me, you know, act naturally, be yourself. Say that line just as you would say that line.

And it just never occurred to me that being an actor was ever going to be some kind of a satisfying career because it just seemed dumb to me. You just, you know, read the lines someone else wrote and there wasn't a lot of thought into it and there was no building of a character. And it really wasn't until I met Robert De Niro and he kind of took me under his wing and sat down with me for hours at a time that I really understood that there was more to acting than just being a puppet. If you remembered, I'd love to hear some of the things he told you in those talks about acting.

Well, I wish that he had had some kind of, you know, wonderful, miraculous things to say to me. Mostly he would take me to these little divey coffee shops in different parts of town, sometimes in Spanish Harlem and, you know, different parts of town that he found. And he didn't talk to me much. He just let me sit there. And after a while, I realized that this was his, you know, he was going to do this again, you know, for another hour. So I just looked around.

I'd talk with other people and I'd go on my merry way and, you know, read the newspaper occasionally. And after a while, he might bring in the script and we'd start working on the script and he'd do the lines over and over and over again. And having been a child actor, of course, I knew my lines. So now I was really bored because I'd have to do these lines over and over again with this adult. And then by the end of our meetings, he would throw improvisation in.

And that was, I think, a really good lesson because I suddenly learned that improvisation was about knowing the text so well that you could deviate from it in a meaningful way as if you had been living this conversation and always find your way back to the text. And I think that's a lesson that most young actors don't really get. I'm almost shocked that the Disney productions, the Disney studio cast you in Freaky Friday, even though you had much more of a history with children's movies. After Taxi Driver, I can't believe that they wanted you in a Disney film, you know, because, yeah, go ahead. And that tells you how loyal Disney was, you know, because I had made many movies for Disney before them. And it was a conscious choice by my mom when she was ferreting out which film I would do next. She really wanted to make sure that I would go back and forth and do different kinds of movies. And so that people wouldn't pigeonhole me as one type of character.

And at that time, Freaky Friday was probably the first feminist movie out there for youngsters. In Freaky Friday, you're quite the tomboy. You play hockey. You're also wearing braces. Could you relate to this character? Was this character foreign to you outside of movies? Because he's like this suburban tomboy schoolgirl, and it just seems like a life that was probably as far away

as the life of Iris and Taxi Driver. Well, not really. I mean, I went to school, and I didn't wear braces, but I certainly played a lot of sports, and I was kind of a tomboy, so I don't think it was as big a stretch as you might think. I mean, I think my mom really went out of the way to make sure that I could lead as normal a life as possible because you have to remember that I had been in the business since I was three years old. So that was something I had to fight for.

Feeling normal, feeling like I fit in was something I really had to fight for. We're listening to a 2002 interview with Jodie Foster. We'll be back after a break. This is Fresh Air. Need to stay up to date on all the news but just can't find the time? Try NPR's new Up First newsletter. You'll get important stories, critical developments on breaking news, and perspectives on hot topics that you're totally free to pass off as your own.

Sign up at npr.org slash upfirst newsletter. climate change fuels hurricanes china promises to stop the big lie persists butterflies have hearts singers die plumbers win nurses persevere your world speaks we listen npr podcasts more voices all ears find npr wherever you get your podcasts one of your most popular films is silence of the lambs in which you play an f FBI agent on the trail of a serial killer. No problems with that film in terms of the violence in it? I'm just wondering if it was creepy for you to deal with that kind of material after the whole likely affair. I love Silence of the Lambs, and I certainly love the book. It was something that I pursued actively because I did feel that the perspective in the movie, the point of view of the film, was from the point of view of a young person who believed that her destiny was to save people. And that is the point of view of the camera of that movie.

A very different point of view than, of course, being the cannibal or the serial killer himself and looking at the world around him with those eyes on. I think Silence is a wonderful film, and I really felt like it needed to be made, and there was a part of me that was terribly drawn to it. I had played a lot of victims in my life, and if you asked me at the time why I was playing victims, I would have said, you're crazy. What are you even talking about? I don't play victims.

But when you look back on my work, you see a pattern. You see an unconscious pattern. Sounds of the Lambs, in some ways, was the end of that pattern because it was the first time that I played somebody whose destiny was to save them. Something that she knew as a small girl, something that she knew before she was born. There was a part of her that was drawn and who's

destined to find those marginalized women out there, those women who were too fat, too thin, too small, too quiet, and to be their saviors. Let me play a short scene from Silence of the Lambs. You play an FBI agent who's searching searching for trying to track down a serial killer and as part of your search you go visit hannibal lecter who is the serial killer who um killed and ate his victims you're visiting him in prison where he's serving life and you you think he'll have clues about this serial killer you're trying to track down uh hannibal lecter is played by anthony hopkins this is your first meeting with him serial killer you're trying to track down. Hannibal Lecter is played by Anthony Hopkins. This is your first meeting with him in which you're trying to get information from him.

And he's both testing you and playing with you at the same time. Tell me, what did Migs say to you? Multiple Migs in the next cell. He hissed at you. What did he say? He said, I can smell your... I see. I myself cannot.

You use Evian skin cream. And sometimes you wear a little. But not today. Did you do all these wrongs, Doctor? Ah. That is the Duomo scene from The Belvedere. You know Florence? All that detail just from memory, sir?

Memory, agent Starling, is what I have instead of a view. Well, perhaps you'd care to lend us your view on this questionnaire, sir. Oh, no, no, no, no. You were doing fine. You had been courteous and receptive to courtesy. You had established trust with the embarrassing truth about Migs. And now this ham-handed segue into your questionnaire. It won't do.

I'm only asking you to look at this, Doctor. Either you will or you won't. Judy Foster, can you talk a little bit about working opposite Anthony Hopkins in these scenes with him? I was kind of scared to death of him. The only time that I'd met him was at a rehearsal, and we'd started rehearsing right away, and he brought that voice out, and I kind of got scared of him. And for some reason, during the shooting, we were always behind glass. He was either behind glass or I was behind glass.

We never really got to hang out together at all. And I was kind of scared of him the whole movie. And then one day over tuna fish sandwiches at the end of the film, I admitted it to him. And finally he admitted to me, I was kind of scared of you too. And it was sort of a very funny moment. And from then on, I think we've become much more comfortable with each other. Why was he scared of you? I guess it was just probably the intensity of our characters playing opposite each other.

You know, that dialogue in Silence of the Lambs is something that you could do in a play for the rest of your life. It's so rich and so intimate. And yet there's so much gamesmanship behind it as well. It's very rich stuff, and when you literally almost never see your partner except behind glass, it just creates this very strange atmosphere on set. You're using a southern accent. I'm not sure exactly which state it's supposed to be from. She's originally from West Virginia, but had been transplanted to Montana, so has lost her accent slightly. So why was it felt that an accent was needed for the role?

That was a choice of the director, and also very much a big part of the novel. She's somebody who is from the South and is not from the Tony family that others in the FBI have come from. She has had to work hard her whole life to be anything more than ordinary. And she was orphaned at a young age and was thrust into living with people that didn't really want her. So it creates a character for Clarice, who's somebody who is very much like a lot of these victims that the killer has been killing. That's her background.

She's a nobody from nowhere. And the accent, I think, is very important. It also, it's a fuel to Hannibal Lecter because he can glean parts of her past through her voice, things that she loved to cover up. It's her weakness. Any thoughts about your own voice? Is that something that you've worked on at all or that directors worked on with you

or did it just kind of develop on its own? No, nobody's ever worked on my voice. A lot of people made fun of me because I had a deep voice my whole life, but no. No, no one's ever worked on my voice. A lot of people made fun of me because I had a deep voice my whole life, but no. No, no one's ever worked on my voice. However, I have had a fantasy about doing radio because I'm such a big NPR head and I can listen to radio every single day. And I think, wouldn't it be great? I could be wearing, you know, my pajamas. I could sound really important, but I'd be wearing my pajamas.

That's right. Unless you had to go to the studio every day in which I don't think you'd want to be wearing your pajamas. That's Jodie Foster, recorded in 2002. She played FBI agent Clarice Starling in the 1991 film Silence of the Lambs. Now we're going to hear from her Silence of the Lambs co-star, Sir Anthony Hopkins. He played the cannibalizing serial killer Hannibal Lecter. If that name has rung a bell lately, it might be because you've been hearing it on the campaign trail.

Silence of the Lamb. Has anyone ever seen Silence of the Lamb? The late great Hannibal Lecter is a wonderful man. He oftentimes would have a friend for dinner. Remember the last scene? Excuse me, I'm about to have a friend for dinner. Remember the last scene? Excuse me, I'm about to have a friend for dinner as this poor doctor walked by. Hannibal Lecter relished recounting his meals as a way to terrify others. A census taker once tried to test me. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. Terry spoke to Hopkins in 1991. She asked him how he came up with the character's voice. When I was assured that the part was on offer to me,

I started to work on it and simply to learn the lines and think about it. And it was such a well-written part, and the story was so compelling, that when I, after the first reading, I heard the voice of Hannibal Lecter. It sort of, I heard it in my head, I saw a vision of it, I saw what he looked like. Well, not strictly within the first reading, but let's say maybe two or three readings of the script.

Because my work is kind of quite simple i just um learn it you know before i start filming just learn the text learn the learn the words and the voice came and for some reason i don't know why i the voice sort of the voice fact, identified the character for me, and I saw within a few more days what he looked like, the hair being slicked back and the way he moved, his grace and elegance. Describe what you did with your voice. Well, there was one line which I think you've seen on the trailers, and I said, I'll help you catch him, Clarice.

I don't know what it was. It was just a kind of tone. And there's a speech where he has, he says, one of the speeches that made me understand men was, he said, you know what you look like to me with your good bag and your cheap shoes? You look like a rube, a well-scrubbed hustling rube with a little taste. And I thought, that's it. That's the character. You know, there's something both very feet, very scary, and very purring about the voice. Yes. Well, I...

The thing is, if you're playing an evil character, if you're playing somebody who's mad or evil, just take the first part, if you're playing somebody who's mad, the thing is not to play him mad, but to play the opposite, play him as ultra-sane. If you're playing somebody who's evil, play the good side of him.

And that makes him more scary because you humanise him. Because nobody is all evil, nobody is all good, whatever those terms mean, but nobody is all one thing. So what I do as an actor is to find out what the other side of the character is. And I found out with Lecter that in fact I think his problem is, or his peculiar psychology is, that he is so in control of himself, mentally, spiritually, physically, whichever way, he's so totally in control of every aspect of his thinking

that he is completely mad because nobody can be in that much control. It's as if he is so sane, he's flipped over into the world of the dark and the irrational. Now, I don't know if this is connected to the control you see the characters having, but you rarely blink in the movie. I mean, the eyes have a fixed stare and they're wide open all the time. Yes. Well, I don't know. I didn't analyze much about the part.

I mean, I just had a hunch on how to play him. First of all, when you're playing a character like this, you have to like him. The actor has to somehow like him. And I think there's something very terrifying about people who are unblinking. It's that they are so certain. They have no doubts, no uncertainty. And they're so certain that makes them terrifying. If you look at all the great monstrous political leaders in our century, you know.

One of which you've played. Yes. Old Adolf, yes. They rise to power because they're so certain, they have no doubts. Their minds are already made up. Somebody said of Hitler, a journalist who interviewed Hitler in 1936 before the war, she said, Hitler has in his library 1,000 books. He hasn't read any one of them. But of course, he doesn't need to because his mind is already made up. And I found that the most apocalyptic, frightening vision of a man. And I think it's the same with

Lecter. He knows with absolute certainty what he is and what everyone else is around him. That's Anthony Hopkins from an archive interview with Terry Gross. We'll be back with more of that interview after a break. This is Fresh Air. Hey, this is Elsa Chang from NPR, where we practice active listening. You know, when we're interviewing someone, we're not just throwing out questions at them. We are listening to the answers, following up, trying to make sense of things so that you have an opportunity to be an active listener too. Keep listening with NPR. Hey there, this is Felix Contreras, one of the co-hosts of Alt Latino,

the podcast from NPR Music where we discuss Latinx culture, music, and heritage with the artists that create it. Listen now to the Alt Latino podcast from NPR. You said that you really liked working with Jonathan Demme. Is there any kind of direction that he gave you that is different from what you're used to getting? Is there something different about the style that he works in? I think the great hallmark, for me anyway,

the great positive for me is when directors, it's not that they exactly leave you alone, but what they do, they let you develop the character. And it's really a question of trust. And what I felt with Jonathan was that he had total trust in me as an actor. And because he paid me that compliment, I had total trust in me as an actor. And because he paid me that compliment,

I had total trust in him as a director. He would listen to some of my suggestions that I wanted to do. And, you know, there were two ideas I came up with that he thought were excellent, and he let me get on with them. Are those the ideas that you mentioned? Well, no, it was just... He asked me, he said, how do you feel about, how would you like to first be seen, you know,

when the film spends a lot of time talking about Lecter before they see him? And I said, well, if you don't mind, I said, I'd like to just be seen standing right in the middle of the cell as if I'm waiting for her. And he said, God, that's weird. He said, well, I said, well, it's the most terrifying thing I can think of, is the very monster that she's listened to and heard about. When she actually goes towards him and she comes into eye contact,

comes into the area of his cell, that he is staring straight at her with a nice smile on his face. And I sense in my own psyche, whatever that means, that that's the most terrifying thing. That's the sort of base of my nightmares, in a way, or it was as a child. Somebody waiting for you?

Somebody waiting for me in the corner or in the top of the stairs. I used to have a dream where I'd open the door when I was a child. There'd be banging on the front door of the house in the dark, and it was always moonlight.

And as I opened the door, there'd be nobody there, but across the street, in a window, three floors up in the building opposite, there was a face staring out at me and smiling. That was the most terrifying nightmare. In itself, it doesn't sound frightening, but there's something strange about that. And this is what I wanted to do to the audience.

I wanted them to just take that moment of horror when they see Lecter, that they don't see somebody with blood dripping off his mouth. They see a very pleasant, normal-looking man standing to attention in the middle of his hour. Very weird. You know, I've seen several articles in which you've been compared to Richard Burton, who, like you, is from Wales. Is that why you're compared, because you're both from the same place?

Well, we're from the same town. Oh, so did he mean, did he have, like, significance to you when you were coming of age, wanting to act? Yes, he represented to me freedom, because I couldn't function in school. I mean, I'm making it sound terrible, actually. I mean, it wasn't that bad. But, I mean, I was a bit lonely, you know. I just wanted to get out of where I mean, I'm making it sound terrible, actually. I mean, it wasn't that bad. But I mean, I was a bit lonely, you know.

I just wanted to get out of where I was because it didn't seem I had much future. I had no qualifications from school. What could I be? So,

Burton represented to me glamour, freedom, and all that. And the only time I met him was when I went to ask him for his autograph when I was about 15 years of age, and I remember thinking, when I left his house, he'd signed my autograph book.

I thought, God, I wish I could be like that, you know, I wish I could be him, or I wish I could be famous, or something like that. And it was the rocket fuel, I guess, or that resentment or anger, whatever it was, that drove me on. And ironically, the strange thing was, as fate will have it, I next met Richard Burton in the dressing room in New York in the Plymouth Theatre. I'd started to play Equus in New York in 1974, and Richard Burton took over in 1976.

So it was a very strange twist of fate, and that's the second and last time I met him. Another one of those highly educated parts, I'll point out. Yes, it was. You were playing the psychiatrist. Yes. There was an extraordinary meeting with Richard in those days because they were sitting in the same dressing room. He said, why haven't we ever worked before?

Why haven't we ever worked together? And he said, we come from the same town. I said, yeah. He said, my God't we ever worked before? Why haven't we ever worked together? And he said, we come from the same town. I said, yeah. He said, my God, this is weird. But sadly, I never worked with him. It's a great loss that he died. I want to thank you very much for talking with us. Pleasant dreams.

Anthony Hopkins spoke to Terry Gross in 1991. Tomorrow on Fresh Air, we'll continue our classic films and movie icon series. We'll feature interviews from our archive of two of Hollywood's most respected actors, Meryl Streep and Sidney Poitier. Streep holds the record as the most nominated performer in Academy Award history, and Poitier was the first Black man to win the Oscar for Best Actor. I hope you can join us. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham.

Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Sam Brigger, Lorne Krenzel, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Teresa Madden, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yakundi, Monique Nazareth, and Joel Wolfram. Our digital media producers are Molly C.V. Nesper and Sabrina Seawort. Roberta Shurock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tanya Muesli. and going back in time to answer them. Listen now to the ThruLine podcast from NPR. The day's top headlines, local stories from your community, your next podcast binge listen. You can have it all in one place, your pocket. Download the NPR app today.