Hopper on Bloomberg

August 6th, 2008 in Actors, Fun/Entertainment, TV

Tonight on the BLOOMBERG TELEVISION “Night Talk” anchor Mike Schneider talks to Actor Dennis Hopper about his films Elegy and Swing Vote.  I love Elegy.

Anyone who longs for stories about the studio days, this interview gives a taste as Hopper talks about what he misses about the old studio system. “The old studio system, in my mind at the time, we all hated it, but when I think back on it, it wasn’t bad. We were kind of indentured slaves, but at the same time we had pools of directors, pools of actors, writers, producers, all under Warner Brothers or MGM or whatever studio, 20th Century Fox, whatever studio you were with. And it was a great time.”

He shares how his demands for being in Apocalypse Now were not met. “I said I’ll be in the picture if I have one line with Brando…Marlon would not have me there the same nights that he worked. He would work one night and I would come in and work. And then he would listen to what I did the night before and I would listen to what he did the night before. So, one day I come in and they said - you know Marlon called you a whimpering dog last night and threw bananas at you.”

He talks about how Easy Rider’s themes ring true today. “How strange it is that I chose to put all the money into a gas tank that had the American stars and stripes on it and a big beautiful chrome machine blows up by the side of the road with all the money in it. I had no idea we’d have this kind of gas and oil crisis.”

 And he remembers his old friend James Dean. “He used to say the reason he was going to be remembered was because he had Marlon Brando on one hand saying ‘go screw yourself’ and he had Montgomery Clifton in the other saying ‘please forgive me’ and somewhere in the middle was James Dean.”

This interview is a treat. Don’t miss it. “Night Talk” airs in the U.S., Europe and Asia on Bloomberg TV at 10PM on weeknights and is simulcast on Bloomberg Radio at 10PM.  Bloomberg Radio is broadcast on 1130AM in the New York Metropolitan area and is available on XM and Sirius.  The Friday night Show re-airs over the weekend Sat at 8:00-9:00pm, 10:00-11:00pm and Mon 12:00am - 1:00am. 

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