Dennis Hopper
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Lee Hopperwas an American actor, filmmaker, photographer, and artist. He attended the Actors Studio, made his first television appearance in 1954, and soon after appeared alongside James Dean in Rebel Without a Causeand Giant. In the next ten years he made a name in television, and by the end of the 1960s had appeared in several films. Hopper also began a prolific and acclaimed photography career in the 1960s...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth17 May 1936
CityDodge City, KS
CountryUnited States of America
For most of my life I wasn't on the left.
You want to hear about insanity? I was found running naked through the jungles in Mexico. At the Mexico City airport, I decided I was in the middle of a movie and walked out on the wing on takeoff. My body... my liver... okay, my brain... went.
To make a documentary is one thing, to make a feature film is quite another.
The best and only authentic book written on the sixties underground.
I was reading a lot of Thomas Jefferson at the time, and Jefferson said that every 20 years, if one party has stayed in power, it's your obligation as an American to vote the other party in.
Well, it's not just money. I consider myself establishment right now. I'm borderline establishment, I'm hanging on by my toenails - but I'm establishment.
I used to have to wear a gas mask to school when I was a kid because of the dust. I would tell people that the first light I saw was in a movie theater, because the sun was just a little glow.
I wanted to be an actor. I decided when I was very young, when I first saw movies, that I wanted to be an actor.
In Method acting, you can't have preconceived ideas. You have to live in the moment. You have to keep yourself open.
I am just a middle-class farm boy from Dodge City and my grandparents were wheat farmers. I thought painting, acting, directing and photography were all part of being an artist. I have made my money that way. And I have had some fun. It's not been a bad life.
I was a Shakespearean actor, I had preconceived ideas, line readings - everything was a gesture, everything was conscious.
You're like a turd that won't flush.
The inside of the Pentagon is an incredible place and a dramatic set. We do [travel] outside, but the inside workings of the civilian oversight of the military inside the Pentagon is really about as exciting as anything you ever want to deal with. It is really amazing.