Santa Barbara Film Fest 2000
Source of picture: GQ magazine March 2000
Source of picture: GQ magazine March 2000
On March 5, Edward Norton was the Master of Ceremonies at the event honoring Sir Anthony Hopkins with the Modern Master Award at the 15th annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival. The ceremony included an interview with Hopkins conducted by Leonard Maltin with film clips and a showing of The Remains of the Day. This event happens a few days after GQ magazine (March 2000) featuring a segment with Hopkins and Norton hit newsstands. Click here to read the segment. Details on the Modern Masters event can be found below in the article by the Santa Barbara News-Press.
Fans were out in force to greet Sir Anthony Hopkins as he arrived by limousine at the Arlington Theatre Saturday night to receive the 15th annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival's Modern Master Award.
Ticket holders to the sold-out event -- which included a live interview with the Academy Award-winning actor and a screening of The Remains of the Day -- began lining up two hours prior to the 7:30 p.m. program and many lined the red carpet as Hopkins made his way through the historic theater's foyer.
The actor Edward Norton (American History X, Fight Club), who would later present Hopkins with the festival's top award, arrived with him. Both actors did brief interviews with the awaiting television media, a group that seems to grow larger with each film festival.
The 62-year-old Welsh-born actor at first looked a bit stunned by the klieg lights and the crowd.
"I'm not a great social animal and I'm not a great one for awards," Hopkins told one entertainment TV program, almost shyly. "I like the work," he explained. "It's a job."
A barrage of flash bulbs went off as he posed briefly, seemingly forcing a smile for myriad photographers. But as Hopkins began to interact with the fans, he seemed to warm up. He even appeared to be enjoying himself, social animal or not.
He signed a dozen autographs. He shook hands and posed for a few snapshots. When Tami Elliott shouted out that Saturday was the 40th birthday of her friend, Debbie Hensler, a Santa Barbara nurse, Hopkins leaned over the velvet rope and kissed Hensler on the cheek.
When he reached the theater entrance, the waiting crowd erupted into applause. He and Norton, and their bevy of publicists, then entered the theater through the patio, where the traditional pre-program party was in full swing.
The two actors politely but quickly made their way through the throng and into the silence of the cavernous Arlington Theatre, which had not yet opened to the 2,000 ticket holders. Hopkins, who wore a blue suit, white button-down shirt and tie, was struck by the theater's faux-village interior. For a moment he thought it was an open-air venue, but then realized he was looking into the starry lights on the darkened ceiling.
"God, it's amazing," he marveled.
He continued to talk shop with Norton, with whom he has evidently established a genial relationship since the two met recently while taking part in a feature for GQ magazine.
For Hopkins, who has received virtually every acting honor imaginable, you wonder where the Santa Barbara festival's Modern Master Award fits in.
"Well, it's a very auspicious title. I don't feel I'm that auspicious a person," he said modestly. "It's an honor, and I'm glad Edward has volunteered to give me the award -- and that's not Hollywood babble, because he's a great actor and I'm very honored about that."
"Tony doesn't know that this is a roast, actually, tonight," Norton, 30, chimed in, getting a laugh.
Though it was Hopkins' first time to the Arlington, it was not his first visit to Santa Barbara.
"I used to live in Ojai for a few months," he said. "I crazily enough bought a house in Ojai and sold it back to the owner after about a few months. I do tend to do things like that."
Hopkins will reprise the role of the cannibalistic killer Hannibal Lecter, which won him an Oscar, in the upcoming sequel to The Silence of the Lambs, called Hannibal.
But Jodie Foster, who also won an Oscar for her starring role opposite Hopkins in the 1991 thriller, will not. But Hopkins is unfazed.
"I respect her decision," he said. "She wrote me a very nice postcard, in fact. I had a hunch she wasn't going to do it many months ago. I met her and she was a little guarded about it, so I said to (Hannibal director) Ridley Scott, I don't think she's going to do it."
Apparently there are no hard feelings, because Foster, who received the Modern Master Award two years ago, slipped in to a front-row seat at the Arlington in time to watch as movie critic Leonard Maltin began his scheduled interview with Hopkins.
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