BEVERLY HILLS (April 22, 1998 00:13 a.m. EDT http://www.nando.net) Actor Bob Hoskins may be co-starring with people like Jessica Lange, Robin Williams and even a raucous animated rabbit, but he's no movie star. "I don't really know what a film star is," he says in his thick Cockney accent. "As far as I can see, Steve McQueen or Tom Cruise are film stars. I'm a short fat, middle-aged man with a bald head. What're you talking about 'film star'? "There are some people -- very good actors -- who can play everything. Some excellent actors who can play some really good parts. But there are some BRILLIANT actors who can only do one part, but they do it over and over again, like Gary Cooper, John Wayne." Hoskins, who is starring as the idealistic boxing coach who tries to enrich the lives of slum youths in "TwentyFourSeven," falls in the first category. He's a character actor, all right, and revels in roles as diverse as the pirate in "Hook," Roger's human foil in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?," J. Edgar Hoover in "Nixon" and the naive chauffeur in "Mona Lisa." Though he fell into acting by accident when he accompanied a friend to an audition, Hoskins seems born to it. "I've always painted. When I was a kid I used to sculpt, paint and write; used to write a lot of poetry. But you always do that on your own. But in this game there's other people to play with, which is wonderful for me. I love it." He says he suddenly felt totally at home when he first found himself on stage. "Everybody, every single person on Earth has got at least one performance in them that they can do better than anybody else. The job of an actor is to do many." Hoskins first auditioned for three repertory companies and was accepted by all three. But once he was performing, he decided he needed to study the craft of acting. "I started watching actors and realized I was just impersonating people," he says, sipping a cappuccino. "That was no good. So I started watching women. They have an emotional honesty and expressions. It's got nothing to do with femininity. They express themselves emotionally. I started watching all kinds of women, how they express themselves with that immediacy. If I've got any kind of talent, it's down to women," he says. It was a woman, too, who saved him when he had given it all up. "I was getting a divorce. I had a nervous breakdown," he says simply. "I was working, earning a good living but I was living inside a bubble of grief," he shakes his head. "To walk away from two kids is not easy. I was 38." Verity Bargate saved his life. "She ran a theater, it was near Regent Park. I was going to a psychiatrist who was pumping me full of drugs and I'd walk up the road and go see her. She said, 'What are you doing? You're giving him all your best parts. And you're paying him to do it.' I said, 'What do you mean? I'm having a nervous breakdown.' "She said, 'You've got a one-act play. It's about a man having a breakdown. Well, let's do it.' I said, 'Christ, Verity, you want me to do it in public?' And she said, 'Yes.' " They rehearsed and were ready for the premiere when Hoskins panicked. "I ran away. I was talking to the ducks in Regent Park, literally." But Verity Bargate was in hot pursuit. "I could see her walking across the park, her skirts flying. She came over to me and said, 'There's not one (expletive deleted) duck here that's paid for a ticket. I've got a theater full of people who did. Come here!' "She grabbed a hold of me and dragged me back to the theater, threw me in the dressing room. I put the costume on and went out and did it. The audience went crazy. And the bubble burst, and it was gone." After the curtain calls he returned to his dressing room. 'There was Verity with a bottle of champagne and two glasses. She said, 'Welcome to sanity, kid.' " Hoskins, 55, eventually married again, a teacher named Linda. They have two children, Rosa, 14, and Jack, 12. His two older children, Sarah, 26, and Alex, 29, are doing well. Sarah is an artist and Alex has worked on some of Hoskins' movies as a technician. Emotional experience helps your acting, thinks Hoskins, whose dad was a clerk and mom was a nursery school teacher. When his mother died, he bought a large house so his father could have an apartment downstairs. "I didn't want to take over his life, wanted him to have the freedom but wanted to keep an eye on him. He's 85," he says. In spite of the comprehensive array of roles he's done, there are some that seem just too risky, he thinks. "You know you're going to enter into a very dark journey to do it. You say, 'Is it fair to my family? When the kids need you and you know you have to pay close attention?' So you just walk away," he pauses a moment. "Mostly they're the really interesting ones to do, but you've got to consider your life. This is my career. It's not my life." "TwentyFourSeven" opens nationally May 1. Luaine Lee writes a weekly entertainment profile at Scripps Howard News Service. Copyright © 1998 Nando.net
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