Seemed to me that Johnny (and Ed) were nervous about it. But when he saw he was interviewing sober Dennis Hopper & not Apocalypse Now Dennis Hopper, Johnny relaxed somewhat.
I was thinking the same thing about Dennis. He lived a great life. He really experienced skills and valleys. He let him still be a raw experiencer a true actor and you can hear in his voice. In this you see underneath there is a professionalism he wasn't just a madman. A true artist who lived life. Man, I looked at him in here and he's middle-aged still well and fit and it freaks me out how that seems like yesterday but it was 30 odd years ago. Makes me wonder about my own mortality. Sorry to laugh but you know I'm not an age where I start thinking man. What have I done? I need to get going on something
One time time I read that Dennis Hopper said when acting you don't act like the character you are portraying, but you become that character. It makes sense and I think Dennis Hopper did exactly that.
My 1st and only taping of a Tonight Show before Johnny retired 8 months later..I was in the audience ...you hear me say "yeah!!" At 1min 29sec when Johnny mentions "Blue Velvet "...
I remember Blue Velvet came out the same year as Hoosiers and Dennis fully expected to be nominated for Blue Velvet. Entertainment Tonight had a crew at his home to get his reaction and when they announced Hoosiers he was totally shocked, he thought it was such a lightweight role compared to Blue Velvet. Just then his phone rang, it was Warren Beatty congratulating “the best actor around”
On the set of Rebel Without a Cause, he was trying to study James Dean's acting and what he was doing until finally he pulled him aside and threw him in a car and said, "what are you doing? How are you doing this?" He had to find out how Dean was acting so damn good. Dean tells him, "when you smoke a cigarette, you don't take a drag for the camera. You smoke the cigarette." Hopper tells the story better in an interview here on RU-vid, but I always loved the story, especially because Hopper became just as fine of an actor and a legend himself. Lotta heart.
@@ObamaFromKenya No. Connecticut. He's descended from one of the same Mayflower passengers. I'm descended from 11 of them. Lucille Ball, Katherine Hepburn, and Bette Davis are also in my tree. My grandparents knew Bette Davis when they lived in Franconia, New Hampshire. She had a Summer home there. 5 U.S. Presidents are also in my tree: Roosevelt, Grant, Washington, Arthur, Taylor, and Garfield. I found out all of this after joining Ancestry.
@@waynejohnson1304 when Franklin Roosevelt married his 5th cousin once removed, Eleanor Roosevelt, in 1905, Eleanor’s uncle, then President Teddy Roosevelt, said “well Franklin, nothing like keeping it in the family”
@@ObamaFromKenya I was shocked when I discovered that too. LOL Another thing I was taken aback by was Zachary Taylor who was my 6th cousin. His daughter married Jefferson Davis.
As you get older you realize how smart these people are. Stars. It's really very impressive. And Johnny's curiosity about someone kind of different is part of why he was such a darn good interviewer. Fun to watch thanks.
I really miss Dennis Hopper. It would've been something else to hangout with him, Dean Stockwell and friends back in the wild days. Such a cool original guy. "Oh you're a neighbor from the neighborhood. What's your name neighbor? How about we go for a ride...."
A friend of mine (blueberry farmer today, rock & roll road manager in the past) was a friend of Hopper’s in his California days. Dennis visited him in Vancouver where the two of them posed in front of a London Drugs sign, obscuring the *London* part. Nobody in VanCity recognized him. Quite a guy..
Hopper was SO convincing in "Blue Velvet" that I felt a nearly irresistible urge to hide under the couch whenever he appeared on screen. He made me want my mommy.
Dennis Hopper was a true icon. Worked with Dean and Brando, made films with some of the greatest directors, kickstarted a new countercultural revolution in American cinema with Easy Rider, ingested enough drugs and alcohol to kill most mortal men three times over, and crawled his way back into the limelight after numerous personal and professional setbacks. I doubt we'll see many of his caliber again.
Carson was an exceptional communicator. Most folks don't even know what communication is but talking to someone might be 1/20th and listening might be 1/20th and there is much more to it. Carson was so exceptional in the subject of communication that no talk show host has ever come close. I don't know what is happening today (well actually I do) but there is such a lack of ability that any one person could swoop in and take over late night. Not Letterman (terrible communicator) or Leno or anyone in the Liberal Talk Show circuit is worth piss.
1:04// true story about the making of the remake of Hopper's Barry Seal movies. Tom Cruise made 'american made' and one of the planes he was using ended up crashing. literally he got off, from the plane, and it took off one last time. // Hopper was right. some planes just should not have been flying // thanks for the upload
No talk show hosts today have the gravity Johnny had with his guests. It's hard to explain, but Johnny and the guests were usually stars talking amongst themselves.
It's too bad Hopper didn't get involved in DOORS movie...he could have added goose bumps to that film. Morrison if done right would be chilling & it would never go away. Very Spooky GENIUS
Hey, man, what are you doing? Come over here, I gotta talk to you man. Hey man, everything that we ever dreamed of is in that teardrop gas tank and you got a stranger over there pourin' gasoline all over it. All he's got to do is turn and look over into it, man, and he can see that...
Surprised to hear that Easy Rider was shot in 1967...very early, almost too early for the film to have that blasé, burnt-out, "fin de siècle" sensibility.
Johnny is showing his class worshipping problem. He said we (some) thought he would have faded by now. I can't see him saying that to an actor type he liked.
Hopper had wildly self-destructive periods and rebelled against Hollywood for decades. Many actors who lived for the business never managed a mainstream comeback like his. That's not class worship, it's Carson knowing the ecosystem.
Do you know what Dennis Hopper’s life was like before his 80s renaissance? By the late 70s he was an alcoholic, drugged-out mess, who’d pissed away a very promising career. Carson’s comment has nothing to do with “class worshipping”. Many people assumed Hopper would burn out. Then he surprised them all, by sobering up, and resurrecting his career with a huge comeback in the 80s and onward.