‘Whoever I play, whoever I become, I must have a starting point. I must be sure of who I am, so sure it doesn't worry me, before I become someone else.' He is confident of his abilities and, at 53, believes he has his mantra:‘Never become a star - you'll put yourself out of work. The name of the game is always to earn a living. Always work but never become a star.' His point, of course, is that cameo appearances like J.Edgar Hoover make an impression without all the agonies. You're needed but you have some control but not all the pressure and expenses of always playing to the spotlight. Hoskins has always fought stardom. Hollywood made that difficult for him following his Oscar nomination a decade ago for ‘Mona Lisa' and the action-'n-animation success ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit?' He has witnessed the difficulties of leading men and talks casually about Dustin (Hoffman) and Michael (Caine) and Robin (Williams) and Tony ( Hopkins ). (‘Nixon' is his third turn out with Hopkins . He played Iago to Hopkins ‘Othello' in 1981 and they worked together four years later in the cable television series ‘Mussolini'.) He also watched leading ladies put on the mark. As the pirate Smee on Steven Spielberg's ‘Hook' he saw a little of Julia Roberts; he knew of her sudden dumping of Kiefer Sutherland and the cancellation of their wedding. He was also too aware of working with special effects as Roberts had to as Tinkerbell: ‘Hey, the poor little thing had so much to get through. She had all the stuff with her fella and she was hanging from a wire for seven hours a day waiting for Steven to go over and do something. It's all in what you find and I found her lovely. It's hard enough without having your troubles splashed all over the darling world. It's a bit much. 'It's hard to take when you are stuck on a blue screen all day doing special effects sequences. Reality starts to take on some very weird aspects. I had that on ‘'Roger Rabbit'' -- you wake up with headaches. ‘It really is a barmy, awful experience. Everything is blue. I'm talking to you but everything is blue and things start to lose their meaning. On ‘'Roger Rabbit'' I'd go out and see weasels pulling people's hair -- you really start to hallucinate to make it all work. I thought I was going mad, going darling potty.' HIs family, he says, kept and keep him sane. The Hoskins family live in London 's Islington and have fourteen acres in Sussex . He met his second wife Linda on Charles and Diana's wedding day in 1981 and they have two children, Rosa and Jack. ‘Before the kids went to school we used to take them everywhere but now we can't do that all the time. If you're on your own in a hotel you get terribly homesick. Yout get to know the cleaning ladies and once you get to that.. ‘I couldn't live in America . It wouldn't be worth my while. I've got two older kids (Alex and Sarah) from my first marriage and I'd never see them. And I've got an awful lot of friends. This way I get the best of both worlds. I come to America , do my work and then go home. I suppose as I go on it won't be twelve weeks but three weeks. That's what I'm looking forward to -- getting older. |
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