Anthony Hopkins (87) aims to portray himself as faithfully as possible in his new biographyWe Did Ok, Kid, which will be published on November 4.
Ultimately, he seeks to settle scores with a past to which he gives little importance, especially with the movies he has starred in. As the son of a humble baker from Wales and being a very poor student, he sometimes struggles to understand how he has become a star.
At 17, he obtained a scholarship to study drama, and in his early adolescence, a force of nature named Peter O'Toole dissected him after seeing him act on stage. Little did Hopkins know that a decade later, while performing in Chekhov's Three Sisters, it would be O'Toole himself who would give him the opportunity to star in his first film, The Lion in Winter (1968) alongside him and the legendary Katherine Hepburn.
One of the most significant points in his biography are the epiphanies. The most important one is related to his alcoholism. In an exclusive interview on the podcast The Interview by The New York Times, the star of The Silence of the Lambs reveals how he realized he had become addicted to that drug.
"I was drunk and driving my car in California in a blackout with no idea where I was going, when I realized I could have killed someone. Or myself, which I didn't care about. I could have had my family in the car, you know. That's when I realized I was an alcoholic. I came to my senses and told my ex-agent at that party in Beverly Hills: 'I need help'."
He gathered courage and called an Alcoholics Anonymous association for help. Immersing himself and dealing with the 12-step process is a tough road to get rid of the drink, but the British star wanted to break free from that spiral. As he recounts to the American media: "The eerie part was that some deep and powerful thought or voice spoke to me from within and said: 'It's all over. Now you can start living and everything has had a purpose, so don't forget it for a moment'."
That happened at 11 in the morning on December 29, 1975. Hopkins claims that voice was masculine, as if it were from the radio and came from his deepest self. Thanks to that epiphany, the double Oscar winner will soon celebrate 50 years of sobriety.
At that time, Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, and Peter Finch - the latter two even bought a pub because they wanted to drink at any time of day and night - were known for their drinking bouts. Hopkins occasionally joined their conversations.
His addiction led to the failure of his first marriage to Petronella Barker (83), with whom he was married from 1966 to 1972 and is the only one of his three wives with whom he has offspring. This is Abigail Hopkins, a composer, singer, actress, and also a drama teacher. Father and daughter have been estranged for over two decades. In an interview with The Telegraph in 2006, Abigail stated that her father had ruined her life.
She claimed that she may have inherited depressive traits from her father, which, combined with her feeling of loneliness from a young age and seeing him very little due to continuous filming, caused Abigail's mind to play tricks on her in her adolescence. "It was a six-month period that many 18-year-olds go through: amphetamines, alcohol," she said. And she opened up: "I was very close to suicide. It was the worst time I can remember. I totally abused my mind and body. The main cause was that my father and I had an intermittent relationship when I was young. I was angry and there was a lot of mourning."
Despite the tough times, Anthony and Abigail still don't speak. And it seems that this situation doesn't concern the actor too much, not even if his daughter will read his memoirs. In the interview with The New York Times, he states that his last wife, Stella Arroyave (69), sent him an invitation in 2006 to meet with them, but they received no response.
Faced with this fact, the star of The Remains of the Day (1993) states, "I wish her the best, but I'm not going to waste blood over it. If you want to waste your life being resentful, that's fine, go ahead. It's not in my knowledge. I could carry resentment from the past, but that's death."
And he adds, "You have to acknowledge one thing: that we are imperfect. We are not saints. We are all sinners and saints or whatever we are. We do the best we can. Life is painful. Sometimes people hurt each other. Sometimes we hurt ourselves. But you can't live like that. You have to say, 'Get over it'."
The actor's second wife was the production assistant Jennifer Lynton, with whom he was married from 1973 to 2002. Despite their three-decade relationship, the marriage had no children.
Throughout his career, he has left us with wonderful performances such as in The Elephant Man (1980), Howards End (1992), or The Father (2020).
Hopkins is known for his bad temper. Countless journalists do not want to interview him, and up close, he remains a cold person. According to the portal Celebrity Net Worth, his fortune amounts to 120 million dollars (103 million euros).