(Credits: Far Out / Universal Pictures)
Sun 16 November 2025 20:15, UK
Dennis Hopper was pretty wild, but for all the drugs he snorted and bizarre scrapes he got himself into, he still took filmmaking incredibly seriously.
He was highly dedicated to the creation of Easy Rider, his directorial debut, even if he was high the whole time he made it, and with Out of the Blue, he made a drama so depressing yet beautifully-crafted; his talents couldn’t have been clearer.
Performances in the likes of Apocalypse Now, and of course Blue Velvet, demonstrated his propensity for challenging roles, which he gravitated towards and executed with ease. Hopper was an expert of his craft, whether that be acting or filmmaking, and he didn’t mess about when it got down to the nitty gritty aspects of working on a movie.
Sure, Hopper might have been found wandering about naked on acid in the jungle, and he even attempted Russian Roulette, but all of that was how he took time off from his busy schedule. When it came to work, he at least dedicated himself to each project – even if he did so in a rather unconventional way.
That’s why it wound him up when others didn’t take the work seriously – especially if they were working alongside him. That was exactly the case when Hopper directed Don Johnson in The Hot Spot, and the experience left him in the right mood. Johnson clearly wasn’t all that fussed about the film once it was wrapped, refusing to promote it until he’d seen whether the critics were on board. Miserable way to go about it, really – and Hopper wasn’t one to keep his frustrations to himself.
Talking to the Toronto Sun, he explained, “He says he’s not going to do anything for this picture until he reads the reviews. I wish him the best, but the other side of this is that he’s a little shit because he should be here today.”
Johnson should’ve shown up – it’s the least he could do considering that he was the lead actor. The Hot Spot actually received pretty good reviews in the end, but Johnson already had his excuse prepared. He claimed that he couldn’t focus his attention on promoting the film because he was too busy working on Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man. Hopper wasn’t convinced.
Comparing Johnson to the character in the movie, who gets up to no good, he said, “He is that guy. He’s an amoral drifter who’s going to blackmail you, man, take what he can get and do what he wants. So he’s right for the part… All these things aggravate me.”
With all being said and done, though, Hopper knew that Johnson was right for the part, “At the same time, I’m glad he’s in the movie. I think he’s wonderful.”
So, he might not have shown up in the way that he should, but at least he delivered the right performance for the movie, which had been in the works for a while. The screenplay had been penned all the way back in 1962 by author Charles Williams – based on his book of the same name – and in Hopper’s hands, the movie finally came to life.
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