By Paul Freeman [1990 Interview]

He was the maverick. The rebel. The wild card. The bad boy. Most of all, Dennis Hopper was a dedicated, daring actor and an inventive, influential director.

Coming out of New York’s famed Actors Studio, the Kansas-born Hopper had roles in two James Dean films, “Rebel Without A Cause” and “Giant.”

He had guest shots in many top TV series, including “Cheyenne,” “Gunsmoke,” “The Defenders,” “The Big Valley” and “Combat!”

His own rebelliousness nearly sabotaged his career. But he managed to get back on track and appeared in such pictures as “Cool Hand Luke,” “Hang ‘Em High” and “True Grit.”

Directing and co-starring in 1969’s ‘Easy Rider,” he helped open the doors for a generation of indie filmmakers. His next directorial effort, “The Last Movie,” pleased neither critics nor the public, though it won the Venice Film Festival. 1980’s “Out of the Blue” earned critical acclaim. His directorial career hit another high note with 1988’s “Colors,” which starred Sean Penn and Robert Duvall.

Hopper gave memorable performances in numerous films, including “Apocalypse Now,” “Rumble Fish,” “Blue Velvet” and “Hoosiers” (for which he received an Oscar nomination).

He survived a chaotic personal life to create an important legacy in film.

I had the pleasure of talking with Hopper while he was promoting his 1990 film, “Flashback,” co-starring Kiefer Sutherland. It’s about a ‘60s radical being brought to “justice” by a young F.B.I. agent.

At the time of the interview, Hopper was already clean and sober and, as always, frank and funny.

POP CULTURE CLASSICS:
What drew you to ‘Flashback’?

DENNIS HOPPER:
Actually, four years ago, my daughter brought it to me, said, ‘Dad, you should play this part.’ So I read it and thought it was an interesting premise for a movie. At that time, the ‘Easy Rider’ lines were already in the script. So it wasn’t tailored to me.

About three years later, she came to me and said they’re ready to make this movie. So I went to my agency, CAA, and said, ‘Would you put me up for this part?’ They said, ‘Yeah, we’ll put you up for it, but don’t be disappointed, because you’re not going to get it. We’ve got Chevy Chase, Dan Aykroyd and Bill Murray up for this part. And we’re obviously pushing them, not you.’

I said, ‘Fine.’ And so when Marvin Worth offered me the part, I was really surprised. I ad-libbed a couple things, like ‘Rust Never Sleeps,’ was one of my one-liners, for Neil. I threw a couple of those in. But as for things referring to me, I’m not even sure ‘rebel without a pause’ was not in the original script. I think those lines were probably already in the script.

PCC:
You were happy with the way the film turned out?

HOPPER:
Making a movie is one thing and then when you see it, it’s another. When I saw it, about a month ago, with the music and everything, I really enjoyed the movie. I was amused by it. I was moved by it.

Marvin’s a remarkable guy. He was Lenny Bruce’s manager. And he did ‘Lenny’ with Dustin Hoffman. He did ‘The Rose’ with Bette Midler. There was a Richard Pryor movie, too. He’s a good guy.

I was moved by the film, which surprised me. I always thought the film was soft on the ‘60s. I had problems with the script. I didn’t think there was enough about the war, enough about civil rights, enough about free speech movement, things I was involved in, Haight-Ashbury, the love-ins, just all the things that I experienced. But they were really there in the film, whether it was in a photograph or something on the wall or a piece of a song.

I wasn’t so sure it was going to be a good movie. Then when I saw it, when it got to the commune and got into the Jefferson Airplane song and Carol Kane and myself, I started getting moved. And I’m pretty cold about what’s happened before. And there’s plenty about the ‘60s. If you want to know about the ‘60s, it’s there. It wasn’t hitting you over the head, wasn’t preachy, wasn’t just a buddy movie. I left the theater feeling good, feeling everything was okay. And what it said about now was enough. The music was great, Dylan, The Stones. It was a nice piece.

I’m glad I didn’t direct this movie, because I would have probably hit a lot of things on the head with a hammer, feeling people might not get it otherwise.

PCC:
Do you feel nostalgia for the ‘60s?

HOPPER:
I don’t think about the ‘60s. I only think about the ‘60s when asked about it. And even then, somebody said, ‘If you remember the ‘60s, you weren’t really there.’ And I can’t even remember who said that.

PCC:
Working with Kiefer, did you find any similarities to the young Dennis Hopper?

HOPPER:
He drinks like I did. [Laughs]. No, people ask me that about Sean [Penn], about Kiefer, about Jodie [Foster]. These people are much more professional, in a lot of ways, than I was. It was not that I was ever late or had problems as far as work ethic was concerned. But I was constantly fighting something. And they’re not fighting anything. There’s nothing really there for them to fight. And when they are fighting something, they’re sort of imaginary dragons. It’s like, ‘I don’t want my picture taken’ or whatever, which is okay.

But their programming, their work ethics, as far as doing the work, like nobody’s more professional than Sean Penn. He’s a professional actor through and through. He and Duvall both, who have these bad boy, bad men, whatever Duvall is, things about them, are really wonderful. You just give them their space and let them work. When I directed ‘Colors,’ I never had to go back and do a retake on anything because they had flubbed a line. That is unheard of in motion pictures, because we’re so undisciplined in our area of work, because you can do it over and over. But they were just so prepared. And they never went into their dressing rooms to rehearse with each other. They came on the sets and did these scenes and they would blow me away.

And Kiefer’s the same way. Jodie’s the same way. They’re just really professional people. Given that they have a system where they’re allowed to work. They’re not given line readings. They’re not told when to pick a glass up and when to put it down, when to turn this way, when to walk out of the room and when to come back in, which is the kind of system that I grew up in, that I had to rebel against and say, ‘Hey, I have to have my space here. Don’t give me line readings. Don’t tell me when to pick up the glass.’ And they went, ‘Who do you think’s directing this movie?!’ It wasn’t a question of me wanting to direct a movie, it was a question of me wanting to be allowed to do simple things as an actor. But they are really professional people. It was a pleasure working with them.

Sean Penn is responsible for me directing again. I owe Sean a lot. That’s because Sean is of the character and of the mind that he finds something poetic in losers. And he was very drawn to Charles Bukowski. And a lot of people like myself, and so on, that Sean feels are really talented and geniuses and wants to help them. And thank God.

PCC:
On “Backtrack,” you directed Jodie Foster. But your version of the film wasn’t released and Europe saw a chopped up version?

HOPPER:
“Backtrack” was caught in a vortex of a Vestron cesspool. It was a victim of bankruptcy and greed. I considered ‘Backtrack’ to be one of my finer films. Jodie, Dean Stockwell, Joe Pesci, Vincent Price, Bob Dylan, Neil Young. It had a great score by Michel Columbier. I’m also starring in it. And Neil Young music and Guns ‘N’ Roses and Chet Baker. And they decided that since they’d gone bankrupt, this was their big movie, this was going to save them some money. They were going to make a lot of money off this movie and maybe save the pictures that were sitting there, waiting to die. And they took it and they re-edited it. That was the first time that ever happened to me. I had trouble with ‘The Last Movie,’ but I won the Venice Film Festival and nobody ever touched it. I wouldn’t re-edit it. But Vestron reedited. I gave them a two-hour movie. They made it a 90-minute movie. They took a half-hour out of the hour-and-a-half movie of my stuff, threw that away, put in a half-hour that I’d taken out of the movie, of other footage, put that in, so there was now an hour’s difference. Then they took all the music out, put in this incredibly big score, big love score under Jodie and I. So the nuances aren’t there. I had this incredible six-truck chase and then a helicopter chase with two helicopters. And they put such heavy, loaded music behind the chase that it makes it feel like the cars and helicopters are standing still. The editing was terrible, what they did. There’s a two-shot between Jodie and I, wonderful charming scene, one of the best scenes in the picture, and in their version, it doesn’t work. So I sued them to take my name of the picture. So all I have is another one of these stories. It’s a drag. I hate the idea that, after ‘The Last Movie’ and all I’ve gone through, that this has to happen. It’s just another negative in a long series of bullshit. It’s really unfortunate.

PCC:
How did you feel about ‘Riders In The Storm’?

HOPPER:
I made that one in England. It was also called ‘The American Way.’ Truth, justice and the American way [Chuckles]. Now that was a movie that had some really great music in it, at one time. Then they took it all out, because they found they didn’t have any rights to it. I never saw the final product. I know they changed it a lot, because there was a lot of stuff that they thought was a little too far out. I liked one cut of it that I thought was terrific. Then I kept seeing it get more watered down and more watered down. And I stopped looking at it, at a certain point.

PCC:
Looking back now, do you see value in the studio system, which was where you started?

HOPPER:
I don’t see any value in that kind of schoolmarm approach to forcing line readings on actors. But I did feel that the studios system, as such, even though I resented it at the time, was a tremendous plus. I think it was a tremendous plus for the studios, because they could have a stable of actors that they could use, like character actors and so on, that they could use for low amounts of money and put into great parts in films. And they could build stars. And the star system, as such, could be built right out of the studio. Also, as a contract player, if you wanted to go watch people edit, you could watch people edit. You had the full run of the studio. You could go into the publicity department. It was like a large family.

There were things that you were forced to do. Like I did more Oskar Werner voices, translating his movies at Warner Brothers into English. I became his English voice. And I hated that as a kid. But I learned how to dub movies, how to loop movies, really well. You just don’t get that kind of training, unless you can go to a university. And at the time when I was growing up, there were no universities teaching filmmaking. So we had no access to that. So, with the studio system, if you wanted to learn how to make movies, you could. As much as you wanted to learn, you were allowed to do there. It was a great thing.

Also, it gave you the opportunity of having a steady income. An actor never has a steady income. So for 40 weeks a year, you had a salary. Every year, you were picked up as an option, the same way you would be on a television series. But you didn’t have to do a television series. Today, to have that kind of security, you have to do a television series. And coming out of that to really get back into films is a long step. You may be secure for the rest of your life financially, but you’ve destroyed any possibility of ever being considered a serious actor... usually. Occasionally people come out of there. Like Steve McQueen came out of it and so on. But it’s rare.

PCC:
The golden age of television, was that another valuable training ground for you?

HOPPER:
Well, when I was blackballed, all those years, I couldn’t work in film anymore, I starred in over 100 television shows. It was great. You did three days - three-day half-hour shows; five-day one-hour shows. You got to work quick.

And live television was wonderful. ‘Studio One’ I did with Frankenheimer [1958 episode, ‘The Last Summer’]. And with George Roy Hill, Natalie and I starred in an hour-and-a-half ‘Kaiser Aluminum’ [1956 episode titled ‘Carnival’], live from New York. Those live shows, ‘Playhouse 90’ and those, they were great shows, great to do.

But I love films. It’s wonderful to work in films.

PCC:
As a young actor, working with James Dean, did that have a profound effect on you?

HOPPER:
He was the greatest actor I ever saw work. He had a tremendous effect on me. And then he died. We were together for a year. Did two films. And he died before the last film was finished. He was older than I was. I was 19 on ‘Giant.’ He was 24 when he died. We shared some great experiences. And those stay with me.

PCC:
Subsequent generations are still so moved by him, still relate so closely

HOPPER:
Yeah, it’s amazing. You know, you go to Europe and you see Bogart, Monroe and Dean, almost everywhere you go. You go into a night club, you go into a toilet, wherever it is, they’re there. It’s really bizarre. Sometimes Brando. But it’s those three people, all dead. And their images are everywhere. And Dean only made three movies. Really bizarre.

PCC:
So what was it about him that made him such an icon?

HOPPER:
Well, I don’t know. It’s like, first of all, as an actor, I don’t know how to translate this, because, you get more callous as time goes on, but, as an actor, he was different from other actors, because he expressed himself externally very well. He had a tremendous inner life going, but he would do externalized stuff, like walking, pacing off the land in ‘Giant’ or surveying his land on the windmill or when he was in ‘East of Eden,’ picking up a glass. There were these strange, kind of awkward kind of physical things. But he would still make it real. But it was very different from a Montgomery Clift, just having an inner life. Or Brando using character things to play a character. It was a very different kind of externalization, almost like a dancer would express himself.

‘Rebel Without A Cause,’ maybe it’s that part. That picture seems to hold up. It seems to still be the universal rebel, family rebel. The misunderstanding of the family, that age when you’re suffocated by your family and have to get out. Backus [character actor Jim Backus, portraying the henpecked father], in the apron, seems to be a little more poignant now than it was when it first came out. That film seems to be really, really strong. Surprisingly strong. Better that what I remember when I first saw it. I wasn’t sure about it when I first saw it. But I’ve it recently. I think it’s an incredible movie.

But James Dean, as a person, he had more imagination than I’ve ever seen any actor have. There’d be a simple scene, like he was being searched. It was just written that he was searched. And he’d suddenly start laughing, because he was being tickled. Or when he gets up and starts howling, like the sirens, ‘Rowwwwwrrrrrr!’ All that stuff was just free stuff that was just coming out of him.

At the time, 1955, I’m looking at this, saying, ‘What the f--k?’ Everyone else is saying their lines, ‘Hello. How are you?’ And here’s this guy standing up, screaming like a fire engine. Laying down, playing with a little monkey, like drunk. I’m going, ‘Wow, man where’s this stuff coming from? It’s not written on the page.’

I’ve only seen three males in my life, who had this kind of magnetism. And I’m going back to sort of the ape theory, that there’s the apes and they all go, ‘Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.’ And they leave the room and none of the female apes follow. But then there’s this one ape, that’s been sitting over there, gets up and leaves. And all the females and all the males follow them. And that’s like, there were three guys, when they were young. One was James Dean, would come into a room, even though he was not a star, he was a star only in Hollywood and New York, because he never had a picture that was successful until after he was dead. ‘East of Eden’ was a bomb and ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ and ‘Giant’ weren’t released until after he was dead. So he would come into a room and half the party would leave with him. Marlon Brando would come into a room, half the party would leave with him. Bob Dylan would come into a room, half the party would leave with him. I never saw it with anybody else. I didn’t see it with Elvis. Elvis was a curiosity they’d watch walk through the room. It was those three guys. Whatever that is, that’s why. I call it genius.

Dean wasn’t necessarily a good-looking guy. First time I saw him, he had these thick glasses on. He could barely see. He used to say that one of the big reasons he could act so well was that he couldn’t see like four feet in front of him when he took his glasses off. He wore like Coke bottles. His hair was always messed up. He was always unshaven. He always had a big, turtleneck sweater on. Physically, he was sort of strange-looking. So it wasn’t that. It was whatever it was. Dylan is not... You’ve seen Dylan, right? So I don’t know.

PCC:
‘Easy Rider’ is certainly an iconic film. There’s been talk of a sequel. Any truth to that?

HOPPER:
Bert Schneider, we almost had the money to do it. And then they started to give me conditions, like Jack had to be in it. And it’s not a question of whether Jack will be in it or not. Jack will probably be in it. But it should not be a condition on making the movie. So Bert got pissed off, because he had people who were telling him they weren’t giving them the money for a sequel unless Jack Nicholson was in it.

We’re talking about a lot of money, because the script is very complicated. I mean, I made ‘Easy Rider’ for $340,000. And this is easily like a $20 million picture. It’s after a nuclear holocaust. And it’s a lot of sci-fi. And there’s thousands of bike wars. It’s ‘Mad Max’ on a gigantic scale. It can’t just be schlocked through. It’s really an epic kind of a number. It’s two guys going across an isolated land. Searching.

We start in biker’s heaven and there’s a nuclear holocaust and the maybe-Nicholson character comes back to biker’s heaven and says, ‘God, it’s terrible. There’s been a nuclear holocaust. The United States has won the war, but, God, they’re really in bad shape down there. They’ve got no leader. They’ve got no colors. They’ve got no flags. We’ve got to go down there, somebody’s got to become the President, get them back to together.’ They all volunteer, ‘We’ll go down!’ And he says, ‘No, no. There’s two guys down there, on a lonely road, in a ditch, they never got to biker’s heaven. Those are the guys, Captain America and Bucky, we’ll get them. So he goes down, on a silver Harley, brings us back to life. ‘Let me get those motherf--kers, where are they?’ And he gets us new bikes and a new flag, a ‘Don’t Tread On Me’ flag. He says, ‘Now go find a President and give him the flag, give him his colors back and restore the country.’ So we go out on this mythical trail, through these nomads, bike gangs of like The Kamikazes, the Japanese bike gang; the Taco Benders, Mexican bike gang; The Black Nationalist Bike Gang. And we look for a President. And then, at the end, we all converge on Washington, desolate, No Man’s Land, in front of the Lincoln Memorial. And thousands of bikers are fighting each other, trying to get this flag, which they think holds a magical power. The ‘Don’t Tread On Me’ flag.

So ‘Easy Rider: Biker Heaven’ or ‘Easy Rider 2,’ whatever it would be, I don’t care if it’s made. If the money comes, great. If not, that’s fine, too. You don’t count on anything until it’s a go-project... and even then... [Laughs].

PCC:
The ‘60s were also a time of sexual revolution. How well do you think Hollywood handled that?

HOPPER:
I’m afraid that the AIDS virus has put a damper on a lot of that. I was talking to Phil Spector a few months ago and he said, ‘What is this shit about this AIDS virus? There can’t be such a thing! How can there be anything like this AIDS virus thing? Come on, we did everything in the goddamn world, we didn’t get AIDS! Where are these people comin’ from with this AIDS stuff?’ He was freaking out, man. [Laughs] No, he was just putting me on. He just couldn’t understand it. It’s hard to comprehend how suddenly this virus hits the world, I mean, if you went through the ‘60s and literally did everything in the world. How come we aren’t all dead? That’s really all he was saying, when you got past the screaming. It is a frightening thing.

So when you talk about Hollywood dealing with sex on any level, they’ll say, ‘Oh, yeah, you can deal with it, as long as it’s taking place in the ‘60s or something, before the AIDS virus. But then they only want to deal with it in a way they think the ‘90s now can allow them to show, morally. Because the younger don’t relate to that aspect, they feel, of our time.

PCC:
The new movie you have coming out this fall, “The Hot Spot,” sounds like sex is a key ingredient.

It’s a good one, ‘Hot Spot,’ with Don Johnson, Virginia Madsen, Jennifer Connelly. It’s an amoral drifter who comes into a small town in Texas and starts selling cars in a car lot and starts having an affair with the car lot owner’s wife, Virginia Madsen, and the 19-year-old accountant, Jennifer Connelly, and finds out that all the guys who work in the bank are in the volunteer fire department and their video security system doesn’t work. He figures he might as well rob the bank. It’s a film noir with a happy ending. A happy ending, because, to me, everyone ends up with who they’re supposed to be with.

PCC:
Will Don Johnson make the transition from TV star to movie star?

HOPPER:
He’s right for this part - an amoral, drifter, car salesman [Laughs].

PCC:
He just did “Dead Bang” with Frankenheimer.

HOPPER:
Yeah, he was terrible in that. He was terrible in it and it was a terrible movie. If you liked that, you’re gonna love this one. [ Laughs] I thought Frankenheimer really lost it, man. And I thought Don Johnson would never be in another movie. But he’s really good in ‘Hot Spot.’ He’s right for this part. It’s hot. I call it ‘Last Tango in Texas.’

PCC:
You’ve battled through a lot in your career.

HOPPER:
If you direct movies, you’re a scrapper. You’re an old five-and-dimer. Making movies is not a glamor business. It’s like trench work most of the time.

Making movies, especially if you’re directing, you’re constantly fighting the clock. There’s so much to shoot every day. I can’t smile and take a moment to say, ‘Oh, it’s a wonderful day.’ My foot’s on fire. I’ve got four shots to get before four o’clock, folks.’ You’re getting three or four hours sleep a night and that’s it.

PCC:
What’s next for you?

HOPPER:
I haven’t stopped working in six years. So that’s good for me. In April, I’m going to act in a movie for Paramount with Diane Keaton. I’m really excited about that, because I’ve never really gotten to act with an actress. I shouldn’t say that, because I acted with Jodie. But I think Diane Keaton is just terrific and I’m looking forward to working with her. It’s a romantic comedy, sort of a Spencer Tracy-Katherine Hepburn kind of a picture called ‘Running Mates.’ I play a senator who’s a Presidential candidate, who’s a bachelor and a womanizer. And his campaign managers decide that he should probably get married, if he really wants to be President. So they set him up with a society woman who’s an interior decorator and has done his offices in Washington. That’s fine with him. She’s a good-looker. It’s great. And then he runs into an old classmate, Diane Keaton. He thinks maybe she should come to Washington and write some speeches for him. She does, but he doesn’t give the speeches, because they’re about the environment, about the homeless and so on. He wants to play a middle-of-the-road kind of thing, doesn’t want to get involved in that. But he falls in love with her. And there sets up your comedy.

PCC:
After directing projects, do you still find acting to be fulfilling?

HOPPER:
Oh, yeah. You’ve got to remember that like, only in Europe have I ever really played leads. I mean, you can say that ‘Blue Velvet’ was a lead. But it was a lead heavy. If you back through and look at my credits, the only leads I’ve played were in like ‘American Friend’ with Wim Wenders. ‘Kid Blue,’ which was a disaster, which I thought was a wonderful film, but never did anything at the box office. I haven’t really had any leads in movies. So that’s very appealing to me.

Besides, I love acting. That’s what I do. It’s just a different trip. I like to say acting’s easy, compared to directing. I’m not sure that that’s true. Directing is much more time-consuming, because you don’t have any time to ever be alone. You’re constantly working. And you have the full responsibility of everything. Acting, you just the responsibility of your role, which is a responsibility of a different kind. But yes, I do think acting is satisfying, certainly.

The ideal world would be to direct in a movie, then to act in one. Direct a movie, then act in one. If I could work that way, that would be the way to go. I’d love to do that. And every once in a while, direct and act in a movie.

PCC:
At this point, is box office important to you? Or do you want to remain somewhat anti-establishment?

HOPPER:
I would like to become part of the establishment, because I would like to build a house like Jack and Marlon. But I just can’t afford to right now. [Laughs]

No, I don’t look at box office at all. I just hope I can keep working and I won’t have to look back. Maybe you never need a hit. Just keep working.