Thanks to my long-time good friend Judy Berlin for selling me (cheap!) thirty-six molded white plastic stacking chairs with arms which will be put to good use in the new studio. Judy's "Kids on Camera" will be located at Hayes & Van Horn Casting, 1515 Vallejo Street in SF, effective Jan. 1st. Good luck in the new venue, Judy!

ED HOOKS' TAKE ON "PRINCE OF EGYPT" AND "SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE"

"Shakespeare in Love" , a fictionalized tale about young Will Shakespeare and how he came to write "Romeo and Juliet", boasts a clever, literate script by Tom Stoppard and inspired performances all around. (Judi Dench's Queen Elizabeth is particularly delicious...) The movie takes us on a trip to another place, another time, and it once again proves the Beatles got it right when they musically advised that "All we Need is Love". Go see "Shakespeare in Love". Take a friend.

"Prince of Egypt", the much-anticipated $125 million feature from DreamWorks, has envelope-pushing animation plus two sequences -- the high-spirited chariot race and Moses's parting or the Red Sea -- which all by themselves are worth the price of admission. I could argue that the script, based on the biblical story of Moses, may be a bit too reverential and, in the final analysis, the overall emotional ride isn't what it might have been -- but why should I? This is a major cinematic accomplishment and deserves to be seen. For full impact, I recommend you see it on the big screen and not on your home VHS.

HOOKS ACTORS WORKING
MARY JO MROCHINSKI (scene study - '96-'98) landed an episode of "Nash Bridges" which is scheduled to air on CBS Friday, January 15th at 10pm (California time) Her scene as a customer in a department store is with Cheech Marin, who is working undercover. BRUCE THOMPSON (scene study, f/tv -- '96-'97) opens in the national company of "Titanic" at the Ahmanson Theatre in LA this month. JOHN SCHUMACHER (all classes - '96-'97) is in "Lisbon Traviata" at the New Conservatory Theatre, 25 Van Ness in San Francisco. JEAN MAZZEI (scene study & comml - '97-current) recorded v/o's for Pac Bell, SF Chronicle/Examiner, Nintendo's new game "Hybrid Heaven" and American Greeting Cards on-line. She also did a CD sampler for Lateral Communications' "English Firsthand" series and has been cast in an independent film entitled "Ashes to Ashes". VICKI SAPUTO (comml - '84, f/tv - '87) shot a commercial for Campbell's Stock Pot Soup. FAY LUMLEY (comml - '87) is on-camera in a CD-ROM for Lucky/Sav-On. KURT KROESCHE (scene study - '96-'98) , who is working as Hamlet these days, just landed a lead in an independent feature, "Eternal". DOREEN CROFT (scene study - '91 - '92) plays the mother of a sick boy in the Robin Williams hit movie "Patch Adams."

CRAFT NOTES
Anthony Hopkins has announced that he will quit acting after he completes his current film project, "Titus Andronicus", now shooting in Rome. This news is shocking and sad enough to those of us who admire his talent, but our sense of loss for roles not yet played is outweighed by outrage at Hopkins's departing verbal assault on the art that has provided him with such a notable career.

"I want to do something else with my life," he says, "I don't want to keep hanging around doing stupid things like acting." "Acting is bad for one's mental health", he adds. "It (my acting career) was a complete waste of time....I'm grateful to the business, they've paid me well, but I've had enough."

Presuming that he was not mis-quoted and was not having a bad-hair-day when he said all of that, we have no option but to take him at his word.

Anthony Hopkins, surely one of the world's most respected and gifted actors, deserves a comfortable retirement with balmy days at the beach if that is what will make him happy -- but why is it necessary to kick the acting profession down the stairs on his way out the door? His tirade reminds me of Marlon Brando who sang much the same tune some years ago when he, too, withdrew from acting, categorizing the art as "embarrassing", an activity not fit for adults.

Somewhere along the way, Hopkins and Brando have lost touch with why they ever got interested in acting in the first place. Both of them must have reveled in the stage experience at some point.. How can one not? Acting, when it works, feels like being plugged into an electrical outlet, sky-diving and sexual ecstasy all at one time. In a word, it is addictive and heady stuff.

I suspect the problem for these men is that they have been paid so much money that their values are simply skewed. Hopkins's complaints brings to mind another interview he gave three or four years ago in which he was asked how he chooses his roles. "Whatever pays the most," was his startling reply, "I just take whatever is next in line." I recall being taken aback by such a blatant declaration of crass commercialism. But now those words sort of fit. And isn't that the pattern Brando followed? Remember the brouhaha about his multi-million dollar fee for appearing in "Apocalypse Now"? And didn't he make something like $20 million for ten minutes of screen time in the first "Superman" movie?

Anthony Hopkins is wrong! Acting is not bad for your mental health! On the contrary, it is good for your mental health. To be a good actor is to be a serious student of the human condition. Far too few people in this world spend time in that pursuit. If they did, we would have fewer wars and less crime. Commercialism -- glorification of the dollar -- is, in my opinion, the thing that is bad for your mental health.

Yes, we artists want to thrive financially, but acting is not about getting rich -- or it shouldn't be at any rate. Acting is an art, a means of communicating with one another, of seeking the bonds that tie us all together. Would that Hopkins was more like Eleanor Duse, probably the greatest actress of all time, who once also spoke from Rome, following a grand theatrical success:

"As for me, when that time arrives, and my youth is passed, and I must write fine' beneath all of my successes, both the ones I achieved and the ones I only hoped for, I shall retire from my career in silence, and with a strong and sweet conviction I shall know: that it was in Art -- both the inward thought and the outward expression -- in Art that I placed all my soul. It shall be a compensation...."

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