Rude Sir Anthony's mammoth apology
THE Elephant Man was nominated for eight Oscars and helped put star Sir Anthony Hopkins on the Hollywood map.
Behind the scenes, however, it was a turbulent production.
So much so that nearly 30 years after making the film, Hopkins has written to the film’s director David Lynch to apologise for his behaviour on set.
“I wrote him a letter to apologise for my bad behaviour on that film,” revealed Hopkins, who played Sir Frederick Treves, the doctor who rescues the hideously deformed “Elephant Man” John Merrick from a freak show in Victorian London.
“I was terribly behaved and very rebellious.” He described Lynch, who also directed Blue Velvet and Wild At Heart, as a “smart man, a very daring figure” but his methods aggravated Hopkins, then 43.
“He just wanted to do too many takes and I couldn’t do it,” said Hopkins, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of psychopath Hannibal Lecter in The Silence Of The Lambs.
“And he was a little remote and I could never understand what he was talking about, which made me very irritable, but he was a very good man and I like David very much.
“He was brilliant, I think.”
Hopkins’s act of contrition was spurred recently when he watched the black-and-white film again. It co-starred John Hurt as Merrick, who was nominated, along with Lynch, for an Oscar. Despite starring opposite Hurt, Hopkins said they barely got to know each other because of all the prosthetics under which Hurt performed.
“I didn’t feel I really met him until the night of the opening,” said Hopkins. “He was under all this stuff.”
Hopkins was recently in London filming the new, as yet untitled Woody Allen comedy alongside British actress Lucy Punch and Naomi Watts. He also stars in the upcoming horror film The Wolfman, with Benicio Del Toro.
Hopkins, who beat alcoholism in his late 30s, recently told Empire magazine: “I’ve done everything I’ve wanted to do and had a great life. I’m over 70 now and I feel stronger than ever. I’ve had a wonderful life. I paint and write music.
“I’ve done it all, I’ve run the race. If the well dried up tomorrow I don’t think I’d really care.”