Anthony Hopkins: Life is absurd, we take everything so seriously
By Magdalena Tsanis
Madrid, Mar 15 (efe-epa).- Thirty years after he nabbed an Oscar for his lead role in the classic horror The Silence of the Lambs, Anthony Hopkins has been nominated for another Academy Award thanks to his performance in The Father.
The veteran star plays the title character, portraying an old man with dementia, opposite Olivia Colman as his daughter, who moves in to take care of him.
“Life is absurd. We take everything so seriously,” the 83-year-old said during an online interview with various international media before this year’s nominations list was released. Hopkins is up for the Best Actor award.
“I have tried to cultivate over the years the art of indifference… all the things I thought were important a few years ago are not important because we are all going to die and that is the dark funny joke of it,” he added.
The Welsh actor is friendly and has a great sense of humor in real life, contrary to the performances he delivered in The Father and The Silence of the Lambs as Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a psychiatrist turned cannibalistic serial killer.
French playwright Florian Zeller made his directing debut with this movie that was released in February.
Hopkins said that the script for The Father was “so good”, explaining that he had the same experience back when he first read the script of The Silence of the Lambs, which he described as “the best role I could ever dream of.”
“It was just fun with Olivia. She is extraordinary. She is so lovely. A wonderful actor and instinctive,” Hopkins said, describing what is was like to work with the British actress.
When asked if he had something in common with his character in The Father, Hopkins said his father did not have dementia but he died more than 40 years ago from heart disease.
