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ANTHONY HOPKINS on 'FRACTURE'
Contributed by Michael J. Lee, Executive Editor
for Radio Free Entertainment
April 1, 2007
In the crime thriller Fracture, a seemingly simple case of a man named Ted Crawford (Anthony Hopkins) who confesses to murdering his wife takes devious twists and turns after young, hotshot prosecutor Willy Beachum (Ryan Gosling) becomes embroiled in the circumstances leading up to the homicide. Together, the two become entangled in a cat-and-mouse mindgame, with Beachum obsessing over a conviction and Crawford trumping him at every turn with legal loopholes and technicalities.
In this interview, Anthony Hopkins talks about the making of the film and working with Ryan Gosling.
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The Interview
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MEDIA: Between this character and Hannibal Lecter, do you just love playing this likable killers?
ANTHONY: I've only played two. It's not a question of just playing killers. I've played lots of other roles. But this film I liked because the script was so good. It was different but as good I think as Silence of the Lambs and it's all to do with structure I think. I can't give you a direct answer. People say, "Why did you do this part?" And I usually say "Money" or something like that. I'll start again. When my agent sent me the script, he said, "I recommend you read this. Greg Hoblit's directing." I said, "Yeah, yeah, I know Greg." I'd seen Primal Fear and some others he'd done. Then I read the script and I phoned my agent back after page 35 and I said, "This is really good." So I finished the script. I said, "Well, if Greg wants to, I'd love to do it" because it's one of those scripts that you don't get very often. And I'm a fan of this sort of movie like Sleepers or Primal Fear, Presumed Innocent, Jagged Edge. Those things that keep you entertained, they're thrillers and that's what I liked about it. I can usually tell, this sounds weird, but the script, especially if it's been recommended and I read it and I look at it, even the way it's been set out. Even the kind of lineup of the dialogue and if there's not too much description, you know. If it's just minimal description or stage directions, film direction, I have a hunch that it's going to be good. Then I read this and I thought it was the best script I'd had since Silence of the Lambs. It's a very clean structure. It's very clear, concise, economic in it's delivery and that's why it appealed to me.
That's more important than the character itself?
If a script is really well written you don't need to--well, I never like to rewrite because I'm not a writer--but when you feel good with the dialogue, and it's got moments when you think in your solar plexus, "This is really good," and that's what I felt about this. And it just happens to be that he's a killer. It's got nothing to do with anything else. It's just it came my way. Maybe they thought I'd be good at it because I played Hannibal Lecter but I don't know. I met Greg Hoblit at Breakfast one morning and after that, "So what do you think?" I said, "Well, it's the best script I've had in a long time so I really would like to do it." And that's the answer.
Was there a specific element of the script that really jumped out at you?
It's the oddest thing because it's like one single line that really got to me. It's just a simple line in the interview scene, the interrogation scene which is one of the best scenes in the film as far as I'm concerned. It's the line when he says, he asks me a question and I give him a stupid answer. I give him the reverse answer. He says, "I'm not going to play games with you." I say, "Afraid you have to, old sport." I thought, "Yeah, that's it." It's very much like the Lecter thing, all that stuff. The clever put downs...
There's more of a relationship than just adversaries...
Well, it's also a formula kind of movie when you think of it because it's like the Levinson/Link movies, Columbo, the TV things. You'd always see this high powered man who commits the murder at the beginning, usually dressed in a business suit living in Bel Air and he commits this perfect murder. Then in comes this complete idiot, Peter Falk, in his dirty raincoat and his broken down car, "Ah, let me just, ah, yeah, yeah." It's one formula. And you see this guy, Ryan Gosling who's a wonderful actors, his broken down car, his poor apartment and bad clothes and he's always late for appointments and he's a mess. And yet I think the audience will like that because the guy's obviously very clever and very smart and relentless and believes in justice and gets his guy.
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Did you do much preparation with Ryan for your scenes together?
No, but the surprise was, he took me by surprise because the very first scene we did was the interrogation scene. What I think he was very smart in deciding to do, Ryan Gosling, was in the script it's obviously in the script the way it's written, Crawford's always on top. He's always poking him in the eye, always upsetting him. In the script, I think it was written that Willy, Ryan Gosling's character, is kind of pushed off balance. Well, he didn't play it that way. He took all my stuff and dodged around it which gave me on that day, when the phone rings before the interview starts, oh, that's a surprise. What is he up to as an actor? And what he was doing was he gave it much more dynamic because it would be boring if it was just one man hitting a tennis ball and hitting somebody in the head with a tennis ball. That's boring after about three minutes so he was like a match for Crawford and he would duck and weaver. Then that gave my person, Crawford, a more indelible motive and that is to really go after him. And actually respect this young punk. It's like, "Yeah, this guy's quite clever. He's not taking what I've been throwing at him, so good." Maybe even beyond the film, maybe Crawford subconsciously sets an imperfection in it to see if this guy's smart enough to get it. So at the end when we reshot that scene, because there was a reshoot in there, when I got through the door and the police arrived, I can't remember, I haven't seen the film myself yet but I just thought it's like I think remember, I don't know what it looks like but I just did, "Well, you caught me. He caught me." As if "Ah, good for him." And when he tries to get me with the tie again in the courtroom, "Ah, he's a smart kid this guy." He'll go to jail, probably go to the lethal injection, capital punishment because I've killed my wife.
If Crawford and Lecter had a game of chess, who would win?
I think they'd be a match for each other. It's so funny how the formula is though that in Lecter's case, his opponent is a young woman who's very smart, which challenges Lecter's intimate need, "this young woman's really, she's great. I like her. She's got guts." And with Crawford, it's a different personality. When we were filming it, it did cross my mind a few times, I thought, "This is a really juicy part." And I said to Greg one day, we're doing the scene, Billy Burke comes in, the cop, after I say "I shot my wife in the head" and I saw it on the playback monitor. It was lit a certain way and I said, "It's a bit close to Silence of the Lambs." And he said, "Yeah, maybe it is. We ought to adjust the lighting a bit." He said, "Do you mind?" I said, "It's okay, whatever." Because I don't want to go back to the old, I mean, I've done Lecter three times now. But it was fun. People compare it, but that's good. It's all right. It's a good flick, both. The first one was a very successful film. If they compare it, that's okay.
How do you feel about these sort of thrillers that build slowly?
I like them. I saw Sleepers on TV last night. I'd seen it the night before and I recorded it, I'd seen it before when it came out and I like the intrigue, the slow development. I really am a fan of that kind of movie and Primal Fear, Jagged Edge, Jeff Bridges. What was the other one, Presumed Innocent. And the end is such a surprise. I like them and I think audiences like them because they want to be tricked. Audiences like being tricked or given the chance to see if they can work a puzzle. Some people say that they got this, some people didn't get...They were trying to figure out the gun misplacement and so on. I've watched movies over the last few years and some good and some have big reputations but sometimes I can't even see what's going on because there's so much business with the camera. They're all in close up all the time, you don't know what...I saw a car chase in some film and I didn't know who was chasing who. It was so crazy. I thought, "Who cares?" Finally the whole thing has just been put in the wastepaper basket because it was so busy and clever, in a bad sense. Like let's get as much...It's as if the directors and the studios don't believe anyone has got an attention span anymore which I think is a big false lie. People do have an attention span. If this film, I hope this film does well, but I think audiences are quite happy to sit there and let it unfold instead of this pandering to what I think the studio believes is substandard or subintelligence. They're going, "We've got to please the kids." Well, I don't think it is pleasing in the end because it's just such a rush. So I'm a fan of this sort of movie. I saw Sleepers night before last and I looked at it again last night. Really fine film.
Were you familiar with Ryan's work beforehand? What do you think of him?
Oh, he's a wonderful actor. I'd seen him in The Notebook and that was the first time. When I talked to my agent, I said, "Who's playing the other guy?" He said, "I don't know. They're looking for someone, some actors they're looking for. Do you have any ideas?" I said, "I don't know. There's that wonderful actor from Notebook." He said, "Oh, Ryan Gosling?" I said, "Yeah." I'm not saying, I didn't get [Ryan hired.] I mean, I didn't say, "We have Ryan Gosling." But he did say to me one day, he said, "Thank you for putting that..." I said, "I didn't recommend." When we were making the film back...Well, I think it was Greg Hoblit said, "You find the actor to do the other part?" He said, "Yeah, Ryan Gosling." I said, "Oh! Oh good, okay." And he's very mercurial. To use the word intense is a disservice because people who are intense are boring usually. He's very thoughtful. He's very bright and he was more concerned about getting the end of the film right than I was because I don't have that kind of analytical mind. Maybe I'm just getting lazy or old or something. But they were trying to figure out about this gun business so we did the version of it last year when we finished the film and I just wanted to go home. I said, "Well, why don't I just smash the Rube Goldberg thing to pieces?" so we did a scene where I just wreck the whole thing, just smashed it to pieces to get the gun. And when we did it, I thought, well, it was a pretty demonstrative exhibitionist kind of acting and he seemed to like it but when they saw the film and I saw a rough cut of it, there was something missing. And then they had preview, test audiences where it tested very high except the thing was with the audience they said the end was disappointing because they didn't want a spectacular ending. So anyway, last year, just before the end of last year I got a call from my agent. I was in South America and he said, "They want you to do a reshoot." I said, "Oh God, I've got to get my hair cut again." So I said, "Okay." So they sent me the new script and it was just terrific and I think Ryan and Greg and a few others were the ones who really worked and focused on getting it right. So when I met Ryan back I said, "Well, thanks, you did a great job there because it's a much better ending." It's a bit like Presumed Innocent that it's a very quiet ending. He just pulls it all apart and I think that's terrific.
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