Lights, Camera, Nixon!

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By Newsweek Editors

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Anthony Hopkins has made a serial killer seem like someone you'd want to talk to at a party, so his current role ought to be a snap. But when Oliver Stone asked him to star in "Nixon," Hopkins hesitated. "I said, give me 24 hours to think about it, because I'm very impulsive and I tend to jump in up to my neck in trouble." That night he called Stone to accept. "I thought I'd be insane to turn it down--and probably insane to do it." Now, despite the Welsh-born actor's initial concerns about playing such a famous--and infamous--American, Hopkins is on the set, committed to giving the president his due. "I've neutralized myself from the political aspects of it," he says. "As an actor I have to find a deep core of empathy with him." He also denies reports that the film ties Nixon to a plot against JFK. "That's not in the script at all. There's no tarnishing of Nixon's image, but it's certainly not a whitewash." In other words, there is no cover-up.

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