Feeling semi-despondent as I usually do at the end of a week when there has been no measurable accomplishment, since I am a combination of the Protestant Ethic with Jewish Guilt, a day's work well done or I feel terrible, I went with Mimi to have lunch and made my way to Katsuya, a Japanese restaurant on San Vicente.A formidable wind blew through the coral trees that line the midsection of that quite scenic local boulevard, and I imagined myself being carried to Bali, or Polynesia. But my arms were too weighty and i hadn't done my yoga, so I stayed where I was and ordered a spicy tuna roll.
When what to my wondering eyes should appear but Sir Anthony Hopkins, a gentle soul I think, and quite shy I thought: I had seen him some years ago trying to become a part of the shadows at the Hotel Bel-Air, imagining that he could disappear into the foliage that lines the driveway. So I greeted him today, told him my name, and said I knew him from the Bel-Air which was not quite a lie, then launched into some genuine praise for 'Fractured,' his latest pale blue-eyed, evil stare into the camera, and remarked at there being something inside him that could project all manner of villainy, well-differentiated, from that same pair of eyes. My clever friend Joie had noted that to me recently, saying there had to be something inside him that could do that, but her appraisal leaned slightly towards madness. I did not pass that on to Sir Anthony.
I asked him what was next, which apparently put him greatly at ease, so standing there on the sidewalk-- I was tempted to invite him to sit down, but did not want to do anything to make him self-conscious or interrupt the flow-- he launched into a tale of a stream of consciousness movie he had written, 'Slipstream',produced himself, put up all the money and done the score for, which score he also conducted. "I don't mean to blow my own trumpet," he said, to which I replied "But you probably could have done that,too." Steven Spielberg had encouraged him after reading the screenplay to make the movie-- "He didn't have the money to do it?" I queried, having learned from my friend Nyle yesterday that Spielberg's upcoming TV show 'On the Lot' is having trouble casting as he doesn't want to pay the actors anything. Pass the hat, anyone?
Anyway, Sir Anthony was most gracious, and dismissive of Spielberg's not putting his money where his encouragement is, speaking happily of what pleasure he had in putting it all together himself, overcoming his insecurities, it being his wife's idea that he should also do the score. He has also been painting, which he admits he has no training in or idea about, but his paintings have been selling nonetheless. "It is all about getting past your Ego," he said, and when I queried him as to how one did that, he said "You just have to let go." He was carrying a very fat book by the English author Colin Wilson called Mysteries, and I take it that that gentleman, too, has been burrowing through the tunnels of forgetting about yourself and letting the universe do it. A book apparently fell from the shelf in a library where Colin Wilson was, that was all about this subject, so he took his inspiration from that shelf and has written this TOME which, though Sir Anthony made some slight reference to age, he is apparently in good enough shape to carry. Carry on, I say.
