The inner life of an outsider

Anthony Hopkins wears a confounded expression for much of his new movie, "Slipstream."

The man who played Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter sits across a table, the overhead light casting shadows over his searing blue eyes, just as in the jail scene from "The Silence of the Lambs."

But that movie came out 16 years ago. Now, Anthony Hopkins, who once looked so menacing, bears a completely different expression.

Posing a moment with his mouth and eyes wide open, he looks not like a serial killer, but an innocent bystander, bewildered by all that's going on around him.

That expression is instantly recognizable to anyone who's seen Hopkins' newest character, screenwriter Felix Bonhoeffer, but it also depicts the feeling Hopkins said he's had his whole life: that of a confused outsider who never fit in.

Now, that outsider has written, directed, starred in and scored his own movie, a stream-of-consciousness curiosity called "Slipstream." The film shows what happens when Bonhoeffer's memories and characters collide with real life in his mind.

At the recent screening of his movie at the Chicago Film Festival, Hopkins took time to talk about his new project and how failure and alienation have fed into his creative work, ever since his youth.

"I wanted something different in my life, because I had no future," Hopkins said. "Because the linear 'go to college, get a degree, become a success and live happily ever after' -- that never happened for me.

"So at an early age, I thought, maybe I'll do something slightly different …"

Lights, camera …

Born in South Wales, and troubled at school, Hopkins "wandered" into acting in a YMCA program as a teenager.

He eventually caught on with the British National Theatre, where he made a name for himself but felt apart from it all.

He also became known for his stormy temperament until, after years of depression and alcoholism, he quit drinking in 1975, and rebelled against the British establishment by leaving for Hollywood.

Unexpectedly, his chilling role in "The Silence of the Lambs" made him an internationally known star.

Its success opened up a succession of meaty roles, and with two lesser sequels, made him a ton of money that allows him to do projects like "Slipstream."

Citing a compensating drive to make up for his early shortcomings, Hopkins has become a self-educated workaholic, appearing in almost 100 films. He memorizes his lines up to 200 times, so that when he walks on the set, no one can say he doesn't know his stuff.

Once he's acting, he operates on instinct -- as when he came up with Lecter's creepy slurping noise.

And at age 69, Hopkins remains driven to perform, appearing in three upcoming movies besides his own: "Beowulf," "The Wolf Man" and "The City of Your Final Destination," for which he's suing for nonpayment.

He's also due to play Alfred Hitchcock in "The Making of Psycho."

"Hitchcock had his torments, this monkey on his back," he said. "He never really believed that he was a success in his life."

It's the latest in a line of roles playing talented perfectionists driven by self-doubt -- though Hopkins ignored any potential parallels with his own life.

Action

After a long career that includes winning the Golden Globe Lifetime Achievement award, Hopkins said he has nothing to prove. It took his wife's urging to turn his script for "Slipstream" into a movie.

But once it was being made, he was fiercely protective of it. When prospective producers demanded final cut, he said no, and helped finance the film himself as he'd written it.

Hopkins' quirky film will probably not reach a wide audience. When it opens Friday in Chicago, it will only show at Landmark's Century Centre Cinema.

"It's not a commercial kind of movie," Hopkins concedes. "Some people will get it, some won't."

The confounding story line and special effects are meant to mess with viewers' perceptions and reflect life's confusion.

"It's my own personal journey, to express that perhaps I can't fit in anywhere," Hopkins said. "My own perception of life is that it's all a strange kind of dream, an illusion. This is not the ultimate reality."

Still, Hopkins maintained, he wanted to write something personal, not profound. His script pokes fun at Hollywood's over-the-top personalities, including one character, in a part written for Christian Slater, who dies from overacting.

One scene in particular, of a road rage shooting, reflects the randomness of life drawn from Hopkins' experience upon moving to Los Angeles.

When a man brandished a gun on Sunset Boulevard, police ended up shooting him.

As Hopkins came upon the scene and asked what was going on, a police officer noticed his Welsh accent and asked where he was from.

When Hopkins told him, the cop answered, "Welcome to L.A."