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Dennis Hopper |
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A PRODUCT OF MIDDLE AMERICA, born in Kansas City, actor, director, screenwriter Dennis Hopper got his start in show business after moving to San Diego as a teenager. His roles on local stages, starting when he was 13, have led to a 55-year career in movies and television comprising more than 350 film roles and TV appearances. Twice nominated for an Oscar, Hopper costarred in two iconic films, Rebel Without a Cause and Easy Rider, that reflected and expressed the angst of two generations of young people. Today, at 73, clean and sober after well-publicized battles with drugs and alcohol during his early years, Hopper stars as a music mogul in the hot TV series Crash, now in its second season on the Starz cable channel.
Tom Blair: Good morning. Where are you?
Dennis Hopper: We’re in Albequerque. We’re filming here.
TB: Okay, it’s no secret you’re one of the most prolific writers, actors and directors of all time. Did you expect to be starring in a new TV series at this stage of your life and career?
DH: Not really. But I’m so happy I’m doing it, because I love the part. The series has been just terrific. And we’ve had some great people on this year. Peggy Lipton from the old Mod Squad series did three episodes. Keith Carradine came in; what a wonderful actor he is. Eric Roberts has his own regular part. He’s been on since the beginning of the series. A great actor.
TB: The series is based on the Oscar-winning film Crash, and you play the part of a music mogul some think is based on Phil Spector. Is he?
DH: I play Ben Cenders, and he’s like a Phil Spector. I shared an office with Phil for 15 years, and he’s a music mogul. But the part I’m playing is really me. I was fortunate enough to get sober 26 years ago—no narcotics and alcohol for 26 years—so I’ve been playing myself pretty much by memory from those days.
TB: Well, you’re no stranger to playing eccentrics and downright wackos in your long career. And Ben Cenders in Crash is no exception. The series premiere had you sitting in the back of a limousine, having a frank conversation with your penis. How do you prepare for a scene like that?
DH: By growing up in San Diego. And spending your weekends in Tijuana.
TB: Your character in Crash also has a history of drug and alcohol abuse and is now, apparently, clean and sober. That part is not exactly a stretch for you, is it? One of your bios says that at some point you were drinking a half-gallon of rum and 28 beers a day, with a bit of cocaine on the side just to be able to keep moving and drink more. Is that true?
DH: It’s true—that was during the last five years of my using.
TB: Do you ever wonder how you survived those years of abuse?
DH: Uh, yeah. I’ve thought about it a few times.
TB: So what turned you around?
DH: I’m not quite sure, but I think my father dying had a lot to do with it. I didn’t come to that conclusion till a couple of years ago, but I think that probably shook me up.
TB: In one of my favorite movies, you played one of your greatest roles as the alcoholic father in Hoosiers. You brought some life experience to that. And you were nominated for an Oscar. Was that one of your favorites?
DH: Absolutely. Terrific picture. David Anspaugh, who directed it, and screenwriter Angelo Pizza both went to the University of Indiana under Bob Knight. And it was a true story about this little high school team that beat all the big boys. Gene Hackman is so good in that. And Barbara Hershey. Just a wonderful, wonderful, inspirational movie.
TB: Let’s talk about your San Diego connection a bit. You moved here as a young teenager, I know.
DH: Yeah, I came from Kansas City when I was 13. I was at Grossmont High School for two years, and then I was in the second graduating class from Helix High in La Mesa. I lived in Lemon Grove.
TB: What brought your family here?
DH: My aunt lived there, and my younger brother had bronchial asthma, and they said it would be the best place for him. And I think my mother just wanted to go to San Diego.
TB: What was it like growing up in San Diego in the early 1950s?
DH: It was wonderful, because I got to start acting at the Old Globe Theatre when I was 13, so I acted there until I was 18. And I was an apprentice at La Jolla Playhouse when I was 16. I picked up props and pulled the curtain, did sound cues and cleaned out the dressing rooms.
TB: Do you remember any of the parts you played at the Globe?
DH: Ringing the bell and going up and down the aisle and chanting: “Hark ye gentles, hark ye all, time has come for curtain call...” But what a place to grow up, what a great place to be. And here I was, thinking, “I gotta get out of here and get to Hollywood.” Every time I go back to San Diego now, I say, “What an idiot you were. Look at this idyllic place.” There’s nothing more beautiful than the Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park, and all I was thinking about was “I gotta get into the movies.” But San Diego has even improved so much. It’s really gotten more beautiful. The downtown area looks so great. The new ballpark.
TB: Do you still visit here?
DH: I get down once in a while. My family’s all gone, but I have a lot of memories.
TB: One of your biographies says you were voted most likely to succeed by your Helix High classmates. That’s true, huh, not from studio publicity?
DH: That’s true. I was in the men’s room—just came out from playing football, and a guy said I heard you’re most likely to... And I punched him. I thought he was putting me on. I think I was kicked out of school right after that.
TB: Well, it didn’t take long for you to prove your classmates right. By the time you were 18, you had a costarring role in one of the biggest hit movies of the 1950s, Rebel Without a Cause. Did you know you were involved in a project that would become an anthem for teenagers of that time?
DH: I had a pretty good idea that Dean was going to be a monster actor. I’d seen him in East of Eden, so I knew what he could do. And this was only his second picture.
TB: James Dean made just three movies in his short career, and you costarred in two of them, Rebel and Giant. You and Dean became friends, didn’t you?
DH: Yeah, we became friends. I was with him every day for the last year of his life, practically, with those two films.
TB: The filming had just ended on Giant before he had that fatal car accident.
DH: We were still shooting when he had the accident. We had two more weeks to shoot. But his part was done.
TB: Did you learn anything from Dean?
DH: I learned a lot. I’d never seen anybody improvise. I’d come out of doing Shakespeare at the Old Globe, and so I was into every stage gesture, every preconceived idea you could possibly use. I’d never seen improvising, so I told him I thought I was the best young actor there was—until I saw him. And I didn’t even know what he was doing. And he said, “Well, you’ve got to start doing things in the moment. Living moment-to-moment as reality, and not having presupposed ideas. You’ve got to get rid of all that.” And then to make sure I “got it,” I went back to New York and studied with Strasberg for five years, until he died.
TB: It’s no secret that you are—or maybe were—a longtime member of the Republican Party. How did the cowriter and costar and director of the counterculture epic Easy Rider become a Republican?
DH: When Reagan ran for president—although I wasn’t a great fan of his as an actor, or as a politician—I really thought it was time to change things, including the Senate and the Congress, which had been Democratic-controlled for a long time. Thomas Jefferson said that if one party has been in power for more than 20 years, it’s your responsibility as a citizen to vote for the other party. So I changed parties, and I voted for Reagan and voted to change the Congress. And I continued being a Republican until Obama.
TB: Is that the same reason you voted for Obama, for change?
DH: My wife was a big supporter of Obama. I’d met him when he was a senator. I was with Martin Luther King in the South—Selma to Montgomery—and I was very involved in the civil rights movement. So it seemed to be a natural thing for me. And my wife raised $5 million for Obama, and I kept saying, “I’m a Republican.” But she took me to Chicago when he announced his candidacy. And earlier that morning he’d spoken to about 5,000 people. Then suddenly I was on an elevator with him, all jammed in, and he turned to me and said, “I’ve been very remiss in my responsibility to tell you how sorry I am to hear about your mother.” My mother had died three months earlier. And he said, “You know, our mothers were both from Kansas. I know what it’s like to lose a mother.” And I thought, my God, we’re jammed in an elevator on the day he announces for the presidency, and he had the kind of humanity to remember something like that. It just really moved me. But I stayed a Republican until the day before the election, when I told that story to Whoopi Goldberg on The View and said I was going to vote for Obama.
TB: Your filmography on the Internet Movie Data Base is a dozen pages long—one of the two or three longest in the database. I’m sure many of the roles you played you’ve long forgotten. But can you tell me three particular favorites?
DH: I think David Lynch’s film Blue Velvet is really wonderful; I think Apocolypse Now is really wonderful. Hoosiers. River’s Edge.
TB: And what was your biggest mistake?
DH: Drugs and drinking. Oh, on film? Well, I made a lot of really bad movies. I just kept working. It wasn’t like I had any great plan. I used to tell people, “A lot of the movies I make are only shown in Eastern Europe and Fiji.” I think I’d better change that Eastern Europe thing; they’re making some pretty good movies now.
TB: Was there ever a role you felt should have been yours that got away?
DH: Yeah, Splendor in the Grass. Warren Beatty got that. And I was from Kansas. William Inge, who wrote it, wanted me to play it. And I met [Elia] Kazan [who directed it], but I didn’t get the part.
TB: So, it’s been 40 years since Easy Rider, but you and Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson are still going strong. What about a sequel? Something like Grumpy Old Riders?
DH: They talked about a sequel at one time. But no. No.
TB: Okay, anything else about the second season of Crash I ought to know?
DH: I come out sober after eight months, and my youngest daughter has been murdered. So I have a very sober, concentrated TV season of trying to find out who killed her. I’m still crazy, but focused.
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