With the glut of superheroes on the screen and television, it’s hard to know whether it’s the actor or his shiny tights that are stealing the show. But in the case of Starz’s special movie, “The Dresser,” there’s no doubt.
Anthony Hopkins and Ian McKellen are the superhero actors of their generation, and for the first time, they’re co-starring in Ronald Harwood’s play that premiered Monday.
While McKellen is best known for this theater work, Hopkins says he was terrified of doing theater and escaped it for film. “I had an uneasy relationship in the theater and with myself in the theater, so I skedaddled and came to America,” says the Welsh star of films such as “Silence of the Lambs” and “Remains of the Day.”
“With ‘The Dresser,’ I was intrigued by what particular nature it is that makes actors want to act,” he says.
“I’ve always been fascinated by that. Why do actors want to act? Why do they want to do Shakespeare? Why do they, night after night after night, go on stage and repeat the same performances over and over and over? And this play, ‘The Dresser,’ more or less answers that, that you have to go half mad to survive that kind of life.”
“The Dresser” is about a small touring theater company performing Shakespeare during the bombings of World War II. Hopkins plays an aging actor (called “Sir”) who is about to go on as King Lear, but as curtain time approaches, he’s nowhere to be found. McKellen is his valetlike dresser, as devoted to the theater himself as he is to Sir. It’s essentially a funny and subtle two-man play (though there are other characters) and is directed by the distinguished British director Richard Eyre.
“I came into this profession by accident, really,” says Hopkins. “I wanted to be a musician. So I came into this as an outsider, so I never really became immersed, although I saw a number of Shakespeare in tours.”
Meanwhile much of McKellen’s work involved the Bard. “(From work with) the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theater, and with other companies, too. But I’ve also spent a lot of my life seeing Shakespeare as an audience,” he says.
“There is a lot of Shakespeare being done in the U.K. And the sort of company that Sir was taking around at a time when I was a young lad, were very precious to us regional audiences. And although the London press might have been rather unkind to someone like Sir, I think he was a bit of a throwback to older times.”
“There have been many films, many television, many plays, about what it’s like to be an actor, the backstage story,” says McKellen.
“And, frankly, none of them is any good, with the exception of this one. I think every actor recognizes themselves and their past in this play. And if you, as an outsider, want to know what it feels like to be in a dressing room and a desperate performance is minutes away, this play tells you exactly what it’s like,” he says.
For Hopkins portraying the character of Sir was a revelation. “Now I can understand why Sir and so many actors, great actors, love Shakespeare. I wish I had that.”
