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
My whole written history is one big lie! I mean, I can't even believe my history.
As an actor, you have no control really.
Work is fun to me. All those years of being an actor and a director and not being able to get a job - two weeks is too long to not know what my next job will be.
When we're out of the eighties, the nineties are gonna make the sixties look like the fifties!
Independent films in this country are in the same position. Miramax and Fine Line are not independent - they're with Disney! Come on. Or they're with Warner Brothers. They're all with somebody.
I went back to photography in the 1990s. But from the 60s to the 90s I didn't really take any photographs at all, unfortunately. During that period I lived in France, I lived in England, I lived all over the place in different cities. I didn't take any photographs and because I felt I had really accomplished everything that I wanted to in photography during the period between 61 and 67.
I've been sober now for 18 years. With all the drugs, psychedelics and narcotics I did, I was [really] an alcoholic. Honestly, I only used to do cocaine so I could sober up and drink more. My last five years of drinking was a nightmare. I was drinking a half-gallon of rum with a fifth of rum on the side, in case I ran out, 28 beers a day, and three grams of cocaine just to keep me moving around. And I thought I was doing fine because I wasn't crawling around drunk on the floor.
Every time I go to Europe, I remember that James Dean never saw Europe, but yet I see his face everywhere. There's James Dean, Humphrey Bogart and Marilyn Monroe - windows of the Champs Elysees, discos in the south of Spain, restaurants in Sweden, t-shirts in Moscow. My life was confused and disoriented for years by his passing. My sense of destiny destroyed - the great films he would have directed, the great performances he would have given, the great humanitarian he would have become, and yet, he's the greatest actor and star I have ever known.
Like all artists, I want to cheat death a little and contribute something to the next generation.
I think not being a professional photographer was actually a blessing, because it allowed me to shoot things professional photographers wouldn't shoot, or wouldn't try or attempt to shoot without lights. So I did all my stuff natural and without lights.
It takes more than going down to the video store and renting "Easy Rider" to be a rebel.
I was very shy, and it was a lot easier for me to communicate if I had a camera between me and other people.
The man is clear in his mind, but his soul is mad.
'Easy Rider' was never a motorcycle movie to me. A lot of it was about politically what was going on in the country.