Dennis Hopper interview - Radio Times, July 2002

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Dennis Hopper interview - Radio Times, July 2002

The actor whose screen villainy has carved
him a place in film history talked to E Jane Dickson about playing an evil genius in the first series of 24.

"One actor who has never shied away from sociopathic roles is Dennis Hopper. The unchallenged "daddy of the baddies" (remember Blue Velvet?), Hopper has brought his signature psychosis to American real-time TV drama 24.

The veteran actor was introduced to the series by his good friend Kiefer Sutherland, who plays beleaguered agent Jack Bauer, and audiences are already relishing Hopper's appearance as grudge-killer Victor Drazen in the massively popular thriller.

"Yeah, I'm real bad in this," drawls Hopper on the phone line from Los Angeles, "but hey, what did you expect?" Hopper, who has appeared as a threat to the civilised world in films as diverse as Speed, Waterworld and Super Mario Bros, now only has to narrow his eyes to send audiences diving behind their sofas.

Wouldn't he like, just once, to be the man who gets to save the universe instead? "Well," he says, "I don't think I'd be offered that part. Martin Sheen [of The West Wing] seems to have that sewn up right now." As Drazen, however, Hopper promises to take übervillainy to new depths.

"The episodes I am on just get better and better," he chuckles."I was very, very happy to be working on this project. I think the idea of shooting a series in real time is wonderful. It's exciting and fresh, and you never know from one instant to the other what's happening next. And, as an actor, it sure keeps you on your toes if you're doing an eight-minute scene and you have exactly eight minutes to get it right."

This, from the Method actor who famously insisted on 100 takes of the same scene in the 1958 film From Hell to Texas, is praise indeed. Hopper also approves the series' political acuity. 24's fictitious "Counter-Terrorist Unit" (so-called because the FBI and the CIA were decidedly prickly about being portrayed in such equivocal terms) was conceived by the writers long before 11 September made counterterrorism an international buzzword.

"It's art imitating life and life imitating art," says Hopper. "There's been a lot in the news about the FBI and the CIA having problems with spies within their organisation. It's happening in your country, too. People at the top get lax and corrupt, and there's a debate about whether it's good to expose that kind of vulnerability to the population at large. Personally, I think it's kinda healthy. Though the idea that one person can throw a monkey wrench into a system that big and powerful is scary ."

Cue Victor Drazen, the man with the monkey wrench. "Oh," says Hopper happily, "I think I get more than a monkey wrench to play with, but I guess you'll have to wait and see."

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