I'm writing this at the request of my brother, Andrew, who reminded me of it upon the recent death of Dennis Hopper. The story, as I heard it, ran like this.
In the 1980s, when Hopper was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor nomination, he was called the morning the nominations were announced by a New York Times reporter. The conversation went like this (caution: all quotes are approximations and may, in fact, be apocraphyl):
Reporter: Dennis, congratulations, you've been nominated for best supporting actor.
Hopper: Thanks. To be honest, I've been expecting this. I've got something prepared, if you don't mind.
Reporter: Great. Go ahead.
Hopper (reading from a paper): I want to thank the acadamy for this honor. "Blue Velvet" is one of the greatest pictures I've ever worked on --
Reporter: Dennis --
Hopper: David Lynch is a genius, a true artist --
Reporter: Dennis!
Hopper: And one of the great directors of our time.
Reporter: DENNIS!
Hopper (nonplussed): What?
Reporter: You weren't nominated for "Blue Velvet."
Hopper (after a pause): I wasn't?
Reporter: No.
Hopper: Then what the fuck was I nominated for?
Reporter: "Hoosiers."
Hopper (incredulous): "Hoosiers"?!?!?!?!?!?!?
Reporter: That's right.
Hopper (increasingly incredulous): I was nominated for "Hoosiers"!??!?!?!? For that piece of crap?!?!?!? "Hoosiers"?!?!?!?!?!? I can't fucking believe it!!!!!! What a piece of shit!!!!!! "Hoosiers"!?!?!?!?!? Those fucking fucks in the fucking academy wouldn't know a good fucking piece of work if it bit 'em in the fucking ass!!!!!! Fucking "Hoosiers"?!?!?!?!!?!? Those fucking fucks ....
Apparently, it went on like that for a while. And, unfortunately, not a word of it could be related to the paper's readers.
The story, as I mentioned above, may be apocraphyl. But, for the record, if Hopper made that point, I think it was a really good one.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
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