Q&A with `Slipstream' director-star Anthony Hopkins.

Byline: Frank Lovece

NEW YORK _ Tony Hopkins _ hey, that's how he introduces himself _ was once just one more respected British actor with more cachet than marquee. By the mid-1980s, after a quarter-century of work and an auspicious film debut in "The Lion in Winter" (1968), the Welsh-born Hopkins was constantly busy doing Chekhov and Shakespeare, ensemble epics ("QB VII," 1974), and forgettable fare ("Audrey Rose," 1977). A spotlight role came with "The Elephant Man" (1980), but afterward he was simply classing-up TV movies and miniseries ("Hollywood Wives," 1985).

Then "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991), for which Hopkins won a Best Actor Academy Award, thrust him into the stratosphere for his portrayal of mastermind serial killer Hannibal Lecter _ later named the American Film Institute's No. 1 movie villain. Hopkins has since earned Oscar nominations for "The Remains of the Day" (1993), "Nixon" (1995) and "Amistad" (1997).

In an Upper East Side hotel last week, the actor, 69, spoke about the non-linear art film "Slipstream," Hopkins' second movie as a director.

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Q. "Slipstream" reminds me of the movie "Jacob's Ladder" (1990), in that a narrator keeps shifting without control from surreal fantasy to disjointed apparent reality.

A. Yeah. I loved that movie.