|
Dennis Hopper on Sleepwalking
By Fred Topel | Image property of Overture Films.
Sleepwalking
Dennis Hopper Sleepwalking
"It was written, first of all," said Hopper. "He has a really tough life out there. I didn’t seem him as an evil man. I saw him as a person that was probably disciplined strongly as a child and given a work ethic, whether right or wrong, and that’s the way he treated people. I think things probably really changed tremendously when his wife died. I think when he was suddenly left with two children, and she died an untimely death and having a headstrong young woman he didn’t know how to deal with and was working the farm."
This is something to which Hopper himself can relate. "That place, if you look at that farm, boy working that farm alone is not a joy. I was raised on a wheat farm in Kansas, in Dodge City, Kansas. Our farms were in Garden City, but I was raised in a similar situation. I was whipped when I was kid and if I screwed up. I wasn’t spanked. That’s just the way it was. In the last 40 or 50 years, we started being concerned with the fact that we shouldn’t punish our children. It was a way of life actually and certainly in these farming areas. It was done. But he obviously has had a terribly hard life, and he takes it out on his kids and wants them to respect him, respect where he is, and do the work. He’s bitter. And he’s repressed him to the point that we see what he does, the violent act that he commits. We see a lot of it, unfortunately, in our society at this point, all of these kids that are bullied in schools and go back in and suddenly start shooting people. This comes out of the same kind of depression that he feels. The granddaughter reminds him of his daughter, and suddenly everything reverts back. It’s an American tragedy."
Luckily, Hopper is so well adjusted he doesn't live with the burdens of his characters once cameras stop rolling. "I’ve been doing this for a long time. It’s like, nothing. It’s like opening a computer and turning it on. It’s not a stretch. It’s a different part that I play, but they’re all a little bit different. I think that the character was well-realized in the writing. I just had to perform, and I’m very happy with what I see on the screen. I think I did a really good job, so I’m happy with it. I think the character has more than one color, because he could be just a one-colored guy, and I think I gave him a little more than that."
He does recognize that he is often called upon to play villains though, and Hopper expects that. " It started when I was 13 playing Shakespeare in the Old Oak Theatre in San Diego. I realized that bad guys were the great parts. I use that as an excuse anyway. When I was under contract with Warner Brothers when I was 18-years-old, we did Rebel Without a Cause and Giant. It was the beginning of television series, and they wanted to put me in a series. I didn’t want to go into a series, so I became the co-star that would come into the series. The young guy would be the young gunfighter or the young murderer or whatever who had to be solved by the people that were regulars on this series. So that’s when I really started playing bad guys, when I was 18, 19, 20-years-old, and I was pretty good at it, so I sort of got stuck in that."
Sleepwalking opens to theaters March 14th.
For the trailer and more movie info, go to the Sleepwalking Movie Page.
Fred Topel
Sources: Image property of Overture Films.
Contact
© 2004 Minds Eye One, All Rights Reserved
The Can Magazine™ is a trademark of Minds Eye One
All movie titles, movie icons, movie stills/clips/trailers/other media... are registered trademarks and/or copyrights of stated holders
CanMag.Com banners contain movie/gaming icons that were created by individual holders
|
|
|
Add to Heffee!
