(CNN) -- "The Human Stain" is a film that has been called elegant and thoughtful by some critics -- and deplored by others for its casting.
The drama stars Oscar award-winning actors Nicole Kidman and Anthony Hopkins.
Hopkins, in London, joined CNN anchor Daryn Kagan via satellite on Tuesday to talk about his role as a university professor with a haunting secret.
KAGAN: I'm wondering of all the roles that are offered to you, why this one intrigued you?
HOPKINS: It's a good script -- that was the basic reason. [A] good script, good director, fine, wonderful costar in Nicole Kidman, and the subject is about political correctness and a man's stand against political correctness, and what it costs him. This courage against that, and that's really it.
KAGAN: I was also reading something this morning that I found very hard to believe -- in looking at your incredible career, and your long standing career and your long-standing success, this is the first role where you're playing the romantic lead. Is that possible?
HOPKINS: Oh, yes. Very possible. I'm what they call a heavy, I guess. I have had a wonderful career playing mixed-up and complicated men, but never played a romantic lead. At this time in my life, I had nothing to lose, so I thought, I would just do it, enjoy it, get on with it.
KAGAN: And so how was that?
HOPKINS: It was fine. We're both, as they say, professional actors. You come and do the work and then go home. That's all amongst it. There is no mystique to it.
KAGAN: You get to play the guy who gets the girl in the movie, but also there are some heavy emotions that go with it. Apparently not everybody in the character's life approves of this relationship.
Nicole Kidman and Hopkins in
a scene from "The Human Stain."
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HOPKINS: No. Coleman Silk, the character I play, has a dark secret, literally a dark secret, and he's accused of racism, because of one word he uses. He's a university lecturer, and he knows very well that they are hounding him, and they are trying to get him because he's a maverick, and he's a strong man, and he walks out on that part of his life and decides that there's a world elsewhere. He hates political correctness, and that was the most attractive part for me to play. I [take] my own stand against my own stand against political correctness, which I think is stifling our world, and in so many subtle ways with relationships and people who expect to you live their way, expect you to live by their standards, their sense of entitlement, and that's been part of my life until I woke up one day and said that's enough. And so I had to shed my own skins, and find my own world and find my own life, and that only happened pretty recently. That's why the part was so attractive to me, vibrant for me.
KAGAN: In the spirit of kind of calling it like it is and saying it like it is, let me ask you this, with all due respect, some of the reviews have said that your character, who is supposed to be a light-skinned black man, people respect you as an actor, but they don't buy Anthony Hopkins playing an African-American. What would you say to those critics?
HOPKINS: Fine. That's OK.
KAGAN: Just that's it?
HOPKINS: Yes, sure.
KAGAN: That they can have their opinion, but you're comfortable and you're proud of this performance?
HOPKINS: Oh, yes, sure.
KAGAN: Let's look forward from here. You're working on an adaptation of the Broadway show "Proof."
HOPKINS: Yes, yes.
KAGAN: What can you tell us about that project?
HOPKINS: Again, I play a university lecturer. I'm a mathematician who suffers a mental breakdown and a mathematical genius. Anyway [it is] a wonderful script. It's based on a play which is a Broadway play, which I didn't see. I think Gwyneth Paltrow did it here in London, as well. I have a wonderful director -- John Madden who directed "Shakespeare in Love." And this is, I think, one of the most enjoyable ones. I have only done about four days I think. I've got some work to do next week.
KAGAN: We look forward to that. Your career [is] among the best of all times in Hollywood. And you continue do great work and continue to work with some of the greatest actors, Nicole Kidman, and next we look forward to seeing you with Gwyneth Paltrow. Anthony Hopkins, good luck with "The Human Stain," and thanks for stopping by via satellite in London. Appreciate your time today.
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