Dennis Hopper On How He Revved Up For Speed
Keanu Reeves? Check. Sandra Bullock? Check. A bus that can’t slow down? Check. But what about a villain? Enter Dennis The Menace!
“It’s fun to be a bad guy for hire.” It’s February 2003 and Dennis Hopper is in a mischievous mood. A man whose association with mania is on a par with most people’s relationship with oxygen, the Easy Rider writer/actor/director enjoyed a wonderful reputation for villainy throughout the 1980s and ’90s.
Not that bad guy roles were anything particularly new. “My very first acting gigs were playing Shakespearean villains at The Old Globe Theater in San Diego. As long as I’ve been doing this, I’ve been the bad guy. Don’t know what that says about me but there you have it – if you need a creep, give me a call!”
One bad guy role in particular had a spectacular effect on Hopper’s standing. With his career and his mental state in equally poor shape throughout the ‘70s, it took the part of the deranged Frank Booth in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986) to restore our man to high estate. As Hopper explains, “Before Blue Velvet, I couldn’t get arrested. After it hit, the phone never stopped ringing.”
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