"His is a sincerely odd likability, and his gentle, intellectual streak mixes pleasantly with an underlying mischievousness... Hoptman's show makes for a decidedly odd and pleasurable Thursday night out." --St Paul Pioneer Press
Ari Hoptman featured in a Star-Tribune profile: "Something in his ability to scrutinize complex patterns of language demonstrates a native curiosity that helps explain his capacity for quirky sideways glances at the world around him."
With Karen Wiese-Thompson in Woody Allen's Don't Drink the Water.
"What Hoptman does is considerably outside the real of garden-variety weirdness. The notions that weave in and out of his mad, mad, mad performance are mind-benders." --Minneapolis Star-Tribune
"Ari Hoptman brings a self-depricating sweetness and killer sense of comic timing to the role of Einstein." --Minneapolis Star-Tribune, on Picasso at the Lapin Agile
"... an articulate and warmly sympathetic portrayal." --Minneapolis Star-Tribune, on Two Rooms
And perhaps the one I am most proud of...
"Ari Hoptman is a talented comedic actor who also knows how to handle dramatic and even musical parts with great skill."
-- Ari Hoptman's website
How did people describe Arlen Finkle from A Serious Man (2009)?
"Passive aggressive." -- Jim Emerson, Chicago Sun-Times Media
"Amiable" -- Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post
"Hilarious." -- Barry Paris, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
"Mealy-mouthed." -- Richard T. Jameson, amazon.com
"[He] wrings his hands to better effect than any character since Uriah Heep. -- Dan Friedman, Jewish Daily Forward
Hope all is well, whoever you may be! Why don't you have a seat and stay a while here at my little website until you have to leave or you get bored?
Click here for my Youtube channel, w/ informative 'n goofy films.
Click here for Ari's acting/comedy reel.
Click here for Ari's commercial reel.
Click here for Ari's voiceover reel.
Recently:
Not much, to be honest!
Coming up:
Hey, it's Fringe time yet again! I will be performing the role of Julius Henry (Groucho) Marx in "Hello, I Must Be Going," a new play by Garrett Rademacher. It concerns Groucho's troubled final years and the little wars that went on within his own household.
You can click here for MN Fringe info. I'm pretty geeked! David Schlosser and Deborah Frethem co-star.
Favorite kind of wood: ply
Favorite nog: egg
Preferred style of chocolate chip cookie: not too many chocolate chips
Favorite long-extinct mammal: Ooooohh, well, the American lion maybe? There was one once, right? In the Ice Age? I think I read that. Maybe I'm wrong.
Position on freedom of speech: in favor of it
Favorite word in the Old High German language: sunufatarungo, an adverb meaning 'father and son together'
Experience as a dealer in Atlantic City: minimal, if that
Fifth favorite Marx Brother: Gummo
Favorite British ruling house: The House of Stuart (1603-1714) had it goin' on. Or so I have read.
Most useless fact yet learned: In the Sanskrit language, a quail says "ku-wit ku-wit ku-wit!"
Caribou or elk? Won't even dignify that.
Does Ari know former Monkee guitarist Peter Tork? No
Interested in how linguists helped solve the mystery of intervocalic voiced consonants in Early Germanic? I know you are, and don't try to deny it! Here's the first of three Youtube clips of a HEY HEY!
Interested in books for kids or books to scar innocent kids for life or books on English grammar? Here's a site you may be interested in.
Dang, I just looked it up - Aristotle said that vacuum thing thousands of years before Spock will have. I probably should have known that. Looking back on my life, I probably should have read more Aristotle.
Now that I think of it, this is sort of a long way to go for the cause of symmetry.
Some people think my actual name is Aristotle, but it isn't.
Speaking of which, remember that episode of StarTrek when that woman was in love with Spock and he had to prevent things from going too far and then, in a last ditch effort to connect with him, she asked him what his first name was and he said, "You couldn't pronounce it"? Well, I remember it and I was all like, naahhh, man, he did not just say that to that woman! Cuz I would have been all, "Wow, man, that's how you wanna leave things? OK."
Well, it seems that this column isn't filled up yet. What else can I put here? Hmm. How about some random dates? M.K. Gandhi (1869-1948), Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), Senor Wences (Wenceslao Moreno) (1896-1999).
OK, here's something: a picture of me and Twin Cities actress-singer-dancer Bonni Allen.
