Role excites Hollywood rebel Hopper

"It's such an adult film, and when I'm looking around, most films seem to be such fluff to me. This is really an in-depth movie," he says. "It's really an attempt at doing something with class."

In the film, Hopper plays an award-winning poet who's best friend to a professor, played by Ben Kingsley, who falls in love with a much younger student, played by Penelope Cruz. Hopper says he was drawn to the supporting role by the chance to work with Kingsley.

"Working with him is a pleasure. He wants to make sure the scene works; he's not interested in just himself," Hopper says. "He's like seamless, you know? You start acting with him, he's like the barometer of acting, you really need to be in the scene."

He was also blown away when he saw Cruz's performance.

"I think she gives one of the best performances I've ever seen a woman give. She has such incredible subtlety and understanding of her role," he says.

According to Hopper, part of the film's success is a result of Spanish director Isabel Coixet's leaving the actors to find their own way.

"A lot of young directors these days, they all want to give you advice, they want to tell you how to do this and how to do that, and they feel if they don't say something to you they're not really directing," he says.

"But all the great directors I've worked with just create an atmosphere for you, and let you block your scenes, and let you do your work. And then they figure out how to photograph it," he says.

Of course, it probably helps when your actor is also a director himself. Hopper shot to fame in 1969 as the writer, director and co-star (along with Peter Fonda) of "Easy Rider," the counter-culture film about two traveling bikers that signaled a seismic shift in American cinema.

Even though that was the first time Hopper had fully captured the public's imagination, he'd been working steady in films since the mid-'50s. He appeared with James Dean in both "Rebel Without a Cause" and "Giant," and starred alongside Paul Newman in the classic "Cool Hand Luke," yet another film about bucking the system.

The same year "Easy Rider" came out, Hopper played an outlaw in "True Grit," alongside John Wayne. But after "Rider," Hopper became famous as a Hollywood rebel.

The years since then have been up and down, a mix of high-profile roles —- the terrifying, huffing Frank Booth in "Blue Velvet," the mad bomber in "Speed," his frenetic photographer in "Apocalypse Now" —- mid-level filler and low-grade cheese.

But Hopper is a working actor, and readily acknowledges that he doesn't always end up in high-class fare.

"You can only do what's offered you. Sometimes you have choices and sometimes you don't," he says.

"I've done over 150 movies. A lot of them, unfortunately, are only seen in Eastern Europe and Fiji," he says with a laugh. "They love bad movies there, by the way."

Currently, he's also on theater screens playing a presidential candidate in "Swing Vote," and as a crusty old motorcycle outlaw in "Hell Ride," a flick that harkens back to the low-budget biker films that preceded "Easy Rider."

With "Hell Ride," "It was all fun; it was a romp," he says. "It was like going back to the old days when we were making motorcycle movies for the drive-in market."

And as for those days, when he was pretty much a poster boy for American rebellion?

"I never thought I'd live to be 30," he says, laughing again.