Hopwood DePree

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Hopwood DePree Peforming Comedy at the Edinburgh Fringe

Hopwood DePree (born circa 1972) is an American actor, author, comedian, filmmaker, entrepreneur and philanthropist.

After learning about the ancestral home of the Hopwood family of Hopwood Hall at Middleton, Greater Manchester, England, he moved from Hollywood to rescue the enormous but dilapidated 600-year-old hall.

Historical Timeline of Events at Hopwood Hall

1300's - 1400's: Farming is the Hopwood estate's sustaining industry.

1420's: The new Hopwood Hall is built. It's believed to be on the former site of the Hopwood hunting lodge.

1500's: A water mill is built on the estate. The family grinds corn raised on surrounding acres.

1513: The Middleton Archers, which included several members of the Hopwood family, help England win the Battle of Flodden — a key confrontation between England and Scotland, to this day in the Town of Middleton, a Pub named the Middleton Archer has outside of it the statue of a man wielding an English Longbow Honouring this Historical event.

1600's: Timber from the estate is used in St. Leonard's Church and in the Olde Boar's Head tavern in Middleton. The tavern is one of Great Britain's oldest pubs. St. Leonard's Church was erected in 1412 by Thomas Langley who was Bishop of Durham and Lord Chancellor of England.

1604: Guy Fawkes visits Hopwood Hall seeking financial support for the "Gunpowder Plot" of 1605 to blow up the Houses of Parliament. The plot is in reprisal to Catholic persecution. Fawkes is arrested in 1605 and the plan is foiled.

1687 - 1690: The Hall undergoes some renovations. John Hopwood has the exterior covered in Tudor brick and the Family Chapel, Guardsroom and Entrance Hall are rebuilt. Timbers from 1426 are still in the walls.

1700's: Coal mines are dug on the estate as the Industrial Revolution expands in England.

1750: By the middle of the 18th century, the Hall staff — butlers, maids, cooks, cleaners, carriage drivers, farmers, gardners and others — outnumbers the population of Middleton.

1811: The Romantic poet Lord Byron visits Hopwood Hall and completes "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," the poem that makes him famous. (It's believed the passage "These pathless woods..." is in reference to the Hopwood Woods that still surround the Hall.) In gratitude, Byron gives the family an ornate fireplace, built in 1658. It's still stands in the Hall to this day.  

1893: Lady Susan Hopwood becomes an early environmental activists by campaigning against smoke pollution generated by cotton mills.

1918: Edward and Robert Hopwood, family sons and heirs, are killed in World War I, along with more than two dozen of the staff. Their parents move to London, leaving the Hall vacant.

1922: The family puts Hopwood Hall up for sale on May 10, 1922, without success. The Lancashire Cotton Corp. takes over the estate during World War II.

1946: The cotton company sells the Hall to a trust. The building later becomes a college for Catholic teachers.

1957: The Hall is officially declared a building of historic interest.

1989: The college closes and the Rochdale Metropolitan Borough Council buys the estate in the 1990s. A community college is established but the Hall is later vacated. Buildings are vandalized.

1998: Historic England puts the Hall on its "at risk" register.

2017: Hopwood DePree moves from Los Angeles to England to begin restoration of the Hall, which has stood empty for nearly 30 years.

Early life

DePree was born and grew up in Holland, Michigan, the son of Thomas DePree and Deanna, daughter of Herbert Hopwood Black (1911-2008), who was recruited to Michigan as a mechanical engineer in the early years of General Motors. Black had been raised near Hopwood, PA and claimed descent from American Revolutionary War-era civil servant John Hopwood. DePree's father was a politician, political advisor and the founder of an insurance company. Hopwood DePree has two sisters, Dana and Dori.

After graduating from Holland High School, DePree moved to Los Angeles where he attended the University of Southern California. He won his first paying role (Rhinoskin: The Making of a Movie Star) when a casting director (Mali Finn) saw him in a USC play. Growing up, DePree did not like his unusual first name and chose to use the name Todd. It was only when he became an actor that he reverted to his birth name.

Career

After his performance in The Last Big Attraction, director Whit Stillman introduced him to a producer who got DePree a deal with Warner Bros. to create, executive produce and star in his own TV show.

After a visit home to Michigan, DePree saw an opportunity to give back to the community that he grew up in. He decided to convert an old, abandoned whip-cream factory into several sound stages and hire unemployed auto and manufacturing workers as crew members. That factory eventually became Tictock Studios which has developed a training program, targeted at below-the-line workers, to get new crew members ready for work. DePree was able to recruit Jeffrey Stott, a veteran Hollywood movie producer (Executive Vice President of Castle Rock Entertainment between 1988 and 2002), to help teach the training classes.

DePree was featured across national US media for his accomplishments and was appointed by Governor Jennifer M. Granholm to the Michigan Film Office Advisory Council to represent broad areas of film and motion picture making, production of television programs and commercials, and related industries in Michigan.

Hopwood Hall

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Hopwood DePree stood in front of the Fireplace Gifted to Hopwood Hall by Famous English Poet Lord Byron who once stayed as a guest at Hopwood Hall - Featuring the Hopwood Family Motto "By Degrees".

DePree has stated in interviews that when he was a boy his grandfather used to tell him bedtime stories about Hopwood Hall but he always assumed it was a fairy tale. Decades later he discovered Hopwood Hall to be a real place, and still standing. The name Hopwood dates back to 1100 A.D. in Middleton outside Manchester, England; Hopwood Hall was built in the 15th century, owned by the Hopwood family, passing to the Gregge (later Gregge-Hopwood, later Hopwood) family on the death of the last member of the Hopwood family resident there. DePree was featured in the news when he moved from Hollywood to England to fulfill his dream of restoring the hall. He has an agreement with the local council to be the new guardian of the vacant and dilapidated Hopwood Hall. He is renovating the building and has received funding to help with costs. He hopes to turn it into a community arts center.

In 2017, DePree began chronicling the renovation process of Hopwood Hall Estate with videos on his YouTube channel .

In 2019, DePree performed a multimedia stand-up comedy show called The Yank is a Manc! My Ancestors and Me which he toured in Brighton, Manchester, London and England.

In September 2020, it was announced that DePree secured a global publishing deal with William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins, and a six-figure advance for his memoir Finding Hopwood, which was developed from his comedy show.

According to the HarperCollins website, DePree’s book, with the title Downton Shabby: One American's Ultimate DIY Adventure Restoring His Family's English Castle, is set to be released on May 31, 2022.

In March 2021, it was announced that EQ Media Group will be producing an unscripted TV series called Hopwood’s Castle.

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Hopwood DePree at Hopwood Hall

In November 2021, with DePree as chair of the Hopwood Foundation charity, the restoration project was given a grant totalling £460,000: £368,294 by Historic England on behalf of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media, and Sport as part of the Culture Recovery Fund, supplemented by £92,073 by Rochdale Borough Council. Focus was stated to be on repair works particularly around the roof, and provision of training and resources for volunteers.

Filmography

Film

In 1995, DePree produced, directed, wrote and starred in Rhinoskin: The Making of a Movie Star, a "mockumentary" about the struggle of young actors seeking work in Hollywood. The film received a limited U.S. theatrical release and was bought by the Sundance Channel after screening at 17 international film festivals. At the age of 23, DePree was globe-trotting to promote his film. "Good Morning America" called it "wickedly funny." The Los Angeles Times declared it "amazing."

He produced, directed, wrote, and starred in The Last Big Attraction in 1999, which received a nomination at the Hamptons International Film Festival and won three awards at the Newport International Film Festival. DePree was one of the producers of the 2010 film Virginia, directed and written by Academy Award winner Dustin Lance Black and starring Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly and four time Academy Award nominee Ed Harris. DePree and Rebecca Green were the executive producers of the 2010 independent film Tug, written and directed by Abram Makowka.

Television

One of his first roles was the defendant in a 1993 episode of Doogie Howser, M.D. and he played Paul Watkins in the 2004 CBS TV movie Helter Skelter, which was nominated for a primetime Emmy.

Philanthropy

In 2012, DePree was honored by ArtServe at the 50th Annual Michigan Youth Arts Festival with an Inspiration Award for his contributions to students.

Additionally, he co-founded and hosts the annual Waterfront Film Festival held in the beach resort area of West Michigan. The festival is a non-profit organization whose goal is to provide a "middle coast" venue for independent filmmakers eager to show their work to sophisticated audiences. It is supported in-part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and was named as a top "Ten Fantastic Film Festival Vacation" by FilmThreat.com, and ranked in the "Top 5 Film Festivals" by SAG Indie in the Screen Actors Guild magazine.

In early 2015 FOX news announced DePree was partnering with ArtPrize to launch ArtPrize OnScreen. ArtPrize is a privately funded non-profit organization that gives away the world's largest cash prizes (over $500,000 annually) to competing artists. September 2015 and was the first year for feature, short and documentary films to be added into the competition overseen by Hopwood. Several films won cash prizes and the documentary "T-Rex" advanced into the final round for the $200,000 Jury Prize.

In 2019, UK's Heritage Trust Network invited DePree to join their Board of Trustees and he accepted.

Politics

Beginning in 2006, DePree worked closely in Michigan with the House of Representatives and Senate to craft a tax-based incentive program that would help bring the film industry to his home state. He was called upon numerous times to testify for the Senate before the bill eventually passed almost unanimously in late 2007 and signed into law in April 2008. Shortly thereafter, Governor Jennifer M. Granholm appointed him as an Advisor to continue to help bring the film industry to the State of Michigan.

Subsequently, the film industry in Michigan went from under 2 million dollars in film production annually to hundreds of millions in expenditures by productions in Michigan in less than two years.

External links

• Hopwood DePree at IMDb
• Official website