Anthony Hopkins has said that it was not "necessary" to portray on screen the story of Alfred Hitchcock's alleged obsession and mistreatment of actress Tippi Hedren.
Hopkins stars as the iconic director opposite Scarlett Johansson in upcoming big-screen biopic Hitchcock, based around the making of Psycho, while Toby Jones took the lead role opposite Sienna Miller's Hedren in recent feature-length HBO/BBC show The Girl.
"I talked to Tippi Hedren one day because I was keen to talk to people who had worked with him, and she never mentioned that," Hopkins told the Evening Standard about the portrayal of the director as a sex pest.
"I saw her present the AFI award to Hitchcock, when Cary Grant and all those people were there. She made a speech and said something very nice. She was a real lady about it."
He added: "Whatever his obsession was, she didn't want to dwell on it. I hear it hurt her because he did insist on her being [sexually] available to him, according to [Hitchcock biographer] Donald Spoto.
"And he said she'd never work again, and this could all be apocryphal, but she didn't work much after that and it did upset her career.
"So apparently he was obsessed with her, but whatever it was, I don't think it's necessary to put all that into a movie."
The Girl aired in the UK on the BBC on Boxing Day, 2012 and in the US on HBO on October 20.
Hitchcock was released on November 23, 2012 in the US and is released in the UK on February 8, 2013.
