cott Hicks (Shine) believes that his feature-film version of Stephen King's Hearts in Atlantis is less about the supernatural and more about humanity. And star Anthony Hopkins, who plays the haunted lead character, Ted Brautigan, believes that the time is right for this story about growing up and the loss of innocence.
The film adapts two of the linked stories in King's collection, and focuses on a summer in 1960 when young Bobby Garfield (Anton Yelchin) meets Brautigan and develops a relationship that will transform them both. William Goldman wrote the screenplay.
East African-born Hicks, who is now a resident of Australia, has plumbed the depths of the human heart in all of his films, starting with Shine, for which he was nominated for directing and writing Oscars. His latest film, Snow Falling on Cedars, based on David Guterson's novel of the same name, received less attention but is no less earnest in its examination of relations in a small Northwest town.
For Hopkins—who won an Oscar for playing Hannibal Lecter in 1991's Silence of the Lambs—Brautigan is only the latest in a long series of keenly observed characters with checkered pasts. Both Hopkins and Hicks took a moment recently to talk with Science Fiction Weekly and other reporters about Hearts in Atlantis and its place in today's troubled world.
Anthony Hopkins, do you think it would be a blessing or a curse to be psychic, like Ted Brautigan?
Hopkins: I guess we all have psychic gifts. Some are buried and dormant. I've experienced synchronicity, which isn't quite psychic, I guess, but there are strange ... phenomena, [times] when coincidences are ... startling and dramatic. But I ... always feel a sense of mild euphoria if I experience them, and I have experienced them a number of times in my life.
I'll just tell you one about this very movie. ... I was in Florence, making a movie, Hannibal, and I was sitting by the pool at the hotel, because somebody had given me a book by William Goldman, and it was called [Which Lie Did I Tell?: More Adventures in the Screen Trade], which was his recent memoir. … And he talks about screenplay writing. And he mentioned my name on a few pages, which were very complimentary. Because I'd been in two films written [from] his screenplays, Magic and A Bridge Too Far. And then I went on to the other chapter, which was about Stephen King and Misery with Kathy Bates. ... And I thought, "Well, I'd like to ... do a Stephen King. And I'd like to work with William Goldman again." ...
Two days later, Dino De Laurentiis was having a little party in his villa there in Florence, and my agent happened to be there ... and in conversation, he said, "By the way, there's a script on its way to you. It'll be here probably tomorrow, at the hotel, FedEx. It's a Stephen King story." I said, "Yeah?" He said, "It's by William Goldman." So I told him, "I'll do it." And he said, "Well, read it first." So I read half of it. ... And Bill Goldman phoned me, because he was so pleased and he was so surprised by my quick response. He said, "It was such a fast response. I wanted you to do it. But I didn't think you'd respond." So I told him the story, and he said, "Well, there you are."
When I was younger, was an acting student, I used to be quite psychic, or so I thought. I didn't know what I was. But I used to see things about people and have insights or intuitions about them, and they were, more often than not, quite accurate. But that could be maybe a sense of observation, which was keenly developed. But then I dropped it. I didn't follow it through. Because I don't know. But I'm open-minded. I think anything's possible. And I have a saying, "Nothing is too good to be true, nothing is too wonderful to have happened, and nothing's too wonderful to last." And it gets you through life.
What is it about Stephen King that you liked?
Hopkins: Well, I think he's a really great writer. ... Roger Ebert ... wrote a very good review for this movie. But I read this little excerpt in Toronto, when I was up there a few weeks ago. And Roger Ebert was talking about literature and American novels with some friend of his, some expert in literature, and I think Roger Ebert asked him, he said, "Who you think is the greatest American writer today?" And this friend of his or literary expert said, "Saul Bellow, without any doubt. And Stephen King." And Roger said, "Stephen King?" And he said, "Yeah. He's underestimated because of the psychic, extrasensory paranormal stuff in his novels." I love the sweep of his books, like Hearts in Atlantis. ... I just like it. I haven't read much of him, but what I've read, I've been very impressed.
How important was it for you to have read the book when you make a film?
Hopkins: Well, nothing's important anymore. But I read it because I wanted to read it. ... It's a big book, it's a 700-page novel. And this film, script, this piece, this story, is just one small segment, which Bill Goldman devised and condensed. And I think he's made a very good film.
Do you think audiences are ready for this kind of film?
Hopkins: Well, actors have a million and one opinions about everything, so I don't know if my opinions are worth anything. But I'm told that people's response to this particular movie's been very good and heartening. ... I saw it as [an] audience [member] myself in Toronto two weeks ago, and I hadn't seen it before. So I was as detached from it as I could be, having been in the movie, and especially at the end of it, I was very moved. ... I had a lump in my throat and all that stuff that I'm not supposed to admit to. I thought the scene with the little girl at the end, where she plays her own daughter, and David Morse's wonderful performance, and the kid, Anton Yelchin, and Mika's [Boorem, who plays Carol] performance, so moved me, when he said to her, "She had the heart of a lion" about her mother. I got so upset by that, but in a good way, because we so undervalue and underappreciate our own lives and our own past. I'm always going back to my own childhood, and I've got very powerful, clear memories of my own past.
And of course, I long to go back there sometimes, but of course, there's no going back. And I think what is significant about this film, it seems in this present time ... so insignificant to talk about things like that, but I think what is significant, what's poignant about this, is when Ted Brautigan says to himself, when the kids are playing on the veranda ... "When we're young, we feel or think that we're in Atlantis. Then we grow up, and our hearts break in two." Which is quite relevant. Especially, this takes place ... in 1960, before the assassination of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King and ... the appalling tragedy of Vietnam. And we have to look back, even more so. There was a time ... It's interesting that we are now having to reevaluate everything. Everything.
Is there a particular role now for life-affirming entertainment?
Hopkins: I think so, yes, I do, I do indeed. … I think the film lends a poignancy to our lives anyway, even if we're too young to remember the '60s. I'm not. I remember the '60s well. But some people will be too young to remember that period. And no place was a perfect place, even in those days, because there were lots of big problems in America then, and throughout the world. ... Big social changes occurred.
Can you see Hollywood moving away from films that deal with death or killing?
Hopkins: Yes, I think so. What can I say? I can add my puny little opinion about anything. But I think there will be a movement, there's a movement already underfoot. I saw somebody being interviewed on Larry King, I think it was a rabbi, and he said, "You know, Americans are very impatient." And he means all of us, not just Americans, but Britain, my own country, big industrialized nations of the world. He said, "We are very impatient. We want everything now. We're going to have to put up with some inconveniences and we're going to have to learn to love it. And really look at our own lives and really see where we're going, and look back, and see what values we can muster up, instead of being so busy. Arguing the hell out of everything. Politics, racism, and all the rest of it. Pull together." I hope so.
William Goldman wrote about actors who use their clout to influence scripts. Do you?
Hopkins: [Not] if you have a really good script. For example, on this one, the ending was changed by Scott Hicks, because ... there was something about the ending that he wasn't satisfied with, but he was always in consultation with William Goldman. And the ending that he devised [Spoiler alert!] was the ending where David Morse meets the daughter of his long-lost love. And he told me that one morning, he came into the dressing room or the trailer, and he told me the outline of the story, how he wanted to do the ending. I found it so evocative and so touching, and I just hope that he would be allowed to do it by the studio or by Bill Goldman. And because they were smart people, they said, "Yeah, go ahead and do it." I was so pleased to see that. ... Because, you know, sometimes things get chopped around, and there are too many opinions about this, that or the other thing, they want more action or they want more sex. None of that happened on this. It was a very gentle process altogether.
Did you bond with Anton, and how did he address you?
Hopkins: He kept wanting to call me Sir Anthony. I said, "Don't call me that." Or Mr. Hopkins. But I couldn't get him to call me Tony. So. ... I said to his mother, "Why doesn't he call me Tony?" She said, "He's scared of you." ... But we had a lot of fun. He's a nice boy. A wonderful actor.
Scott Hicks, how did you find Anton Yelchin?
Hicks: He's remarkable, isn't he? ... I saw him first on tape, and there was a tremendous openness about him. ... This wasn't like watching a child acting. It felt really honest to me. Because there's honestly nothing worse to set your teeth on edge than watching a child acting, you know? ... It became confirmed the more I worked with him. Because, if I could put him in the frame of mind about the scene or whatever it was, he would step in front of the camera and tell the truth, that's all. He would just believe. And that's in essence is what acting is about, isn't it? It's like, "Let's pretend." There's no technique. ... It's belief. And I think he has that quality. And I hope he's always able to retain it.
The casting people saw, you know, 700 or 800 kids across America. I only saw the tip of that iceberg, you know, the few who filtered through that they thought had real possibility. And in the end, I probably saw less than a dozen, physically in the same room. But that's the nature of the process. You've got really good people hunting. You have to have faith that they're going to find that needle. It was tough, especially when you got down to the last three. And they all met Anthony Hopkins, and they read with him. And...they're very accomplished young actors. But then it comes down to other elements that you're looking for. ... I wrote to the couple who didn't make it in the end, because they make a big investment to do it. But they're also smart enough to know that, in the casting process, it's actually a great achievement to get in the room with the director, let alone do a screen test, let alone meet the star. It's really good kudos for them.
What was Anthony like doing a movie with so many children?
Hicks: He was very generous. ... When you have somebody of his caliber who steps onto set, the bar raises, you know, for everyone. And of course it ramps up ... people's nervousness. They can feel intimidated. And one of the great things he does is he just goes to some effort to set people at their ease. And he'll do it by joking with them, or letting them know that he's a workaday actor, along with them, and he'll do the best he can. So he has a great facility with that. He did that with the kids. Not by patronizing them. ... Like with Anton, he just talked to him like a regular person. Rather like Ted does in the movie. And it worked.
Anthony was talking about ESP and the supernatural. For you, was it important for there to be another explanation other than ESP?
Hicks: The thing is, I felt that the psychic element of Ted's [character] was still a very, like, a really human quality. ... Of course, in the novel, there's a lot of supernatural ingredients in the story. Ted is an alien. The low men are aliens. ... William Goldman had stripped a lot of that out, and I decided to remove it completely and keep Ted as a human being, but with this psychic ability, which I honestly believe that some people have. Tony himself will talk about periods in his life when he's ... had some sense of what other people are thinking and so on. Now obviously, in our story, Ted's ability to hand that on or open it up for Bobby is maybe the only element that you could think of as being supernatural.
But the way I feel that is, remember the story is a child's memory. So everything is seen through that prism. And it's as if the story is being told, say, by a David Morse [who plays the adult Bobby], for example, saying, "You know, when I was a kid, there was this guy who moved in upstairs. The thing is, when the bullies came around, I mean, it was like, one second he wasn't there, then he was there. I don't know how he did it. And he could almost, like, read your mind, you know? And after I'd been with him, I felt like I could read people's minds." So, seen through the child's memory, all those things are heightened into a kind of fable. And, if you like, that's maybe the out that I think you were talking about.
The character of Bobby's mother, Liz, played by Hope Davis, has been toned down from King's original stories.
Hicks: It was my decision. I felt that, you know, we could not see this woman beat up her son and ever hope to have any sympathy for her. And in the book, and in the screenplay that I read originally, she throws Bobby across the room and bangs his head against the wall, and there's blood. ... I thought, "It's too much." I felt that there was as much implied. ... [She] got as close to hitting him as that [gestures], and that was enough, you know, because ... I didn't think you could ever get to a point of reconciliation. Of course, in Stephen King's novel, Bobby becomes a juvenile delinquent. It's a whole other story. But the story we were telling was this Bobby, and this Liz. So, yes, I toned it down, because I felt Hope Davis already had, you know, a tightrope enough to walk between keeping our sympathy [and] losing our sympathy on her way through, which I think she did incredibly well.
Was it important for Anthony's character to have his own problems, rather than be the "magic man" who shows up to help the boy out?
Hicks: Absolutely. Again, [it was important] that he be human—human with all the sort of frailties that that implies, and not some heroic figure. So he is haunted, and there is a mystery about his past, and a mystery about his future, and who are these guys [the low men who are after Brautigan]? All of which again comes back to the child's memory thing, ... [the] imperfect memory as to what the meaning of all these events was. Because I think when you're a child, things happen to you that you don't understand, and that even later, you'll have to reflect back on considerably to really put it together in your mind. ... Human frailty was important.
You have said that this particular film in the current circumstances should do well?
Hicks: I didn't actually say that I felt it would do well. What I said—and what I feel—is that I feel totally comfortable with opening this movie now because of the kind of movie it is. And that if people want to go to the cinema now, they may as well see something that is, hopefully, tender, emotional, ... reflects on themes of innocence and childhood and so on. That might as well be what they go and see. ... I don't feel like, "Oh, great, we've got a fantastic moment to release our film." Things are just so delicate in terms of real life, what people are living through. I've taken heart from a lot of public comment, individuals and others who have mentioned to me, "It took me out of myself. I could forget about what was going on for a while, and it felt good." I thought, "Well, that's a function of entertainment." We're being encouraged to resume normal lives. Part of that is being entertained.
We've been maybe dreaming too long these terrible dreams that have suddenly come true as nightmares. ... I don't want to get too sort of spooky about it. But cinema in some ways is a representation of the public unconscious ... and maybe it's not a bad thing if we turn our minds to telling some more positive stories. It's an era when you can do anything in cinema now, with digital effects and all the rest of it. Maybe it's all gone as far as it needs to go.
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