On Movies: Anthony Hopkins in 'The Rite': On evil, God, he hasn't a clue

If one believes in Evil - yes, with a capital E - then the charmer that Anthony Hopkins has played three times now, a Chianti-swilling, sweetbreads-savoring psychopath by the name of Hannibal Lecter, could be Evil's poster boy.

But Hopkins, who has channeled mad menace in films both good (The Silence of the Lambs) and bad (The Wolfman), is not so sure that Evil of the biblical kind exists.

This weighty question came up in reference to The Rite, a somewhat brainy thriller in which Hopkins - 73 now, and, to his own amazement, still working as much as ever - portrays an exorcist. In his rectory in Rome, Hopkins' Father Lucas, an unorthodox Jesuit, goes nuclear on the Devil and his satanic underlings, grabbing hold of the possessed, spewing incantations, daring the demons to reveal themselves. The film opens Friday.

There was a real exorcist, a priest, on hand to offer counsel during the production, Hopkins says. The Rite centers on the relationship between his character - a Welshman, like the actor himself - and a young deacon (Colin O'Donoghue) who isn't sure, after all, that there is a God, or a Devil. Couldn't these troubled souls be suffering from dementia, or schizophrenia?

"I'm not sure what I believe," Hopkins says, having called for the appointed interview with the disarming opener "Hi, it's Tony Hopkins here," and then been asked about his own views on faith and religion.

He used to be an atheist, he says. Now, "I don't know what the hell I believe. I think there's something at the back of everything. . . . And I think the film presents an interesting debate, and I respect people's beliefs, whether they're atheists or believers. . . .

"If someone believes in God, who am I to argue with that? Who am I to question the faith of people like Einstein, Kepler, Charles Darwin, who were themselves great scientists and yet believed in a deity? . . . I do read everything I can. For this project, I read On the Origin of Species, and I've read the Psalms of Bonhoeffer, and his life story. I've read everything I possibly can.

"And I'm not an educated man, but I love to read, and so I dig down into it to see if there's anything I can find there. And I still come out without a clue, so I have no idea.