The hidden dark side of Anthony Hopkins: “I wouldn’t have wanted to meet myself”
The word ‘legend’ is thrown around a lot when describing famous actors, but one man who can truly lay claim to the term is Sir Anthony Hopkins. The Welsh thespian is one of the best to ever do it, consistently putting in great performances across his decades-long career. From his early days as a Shakespearean stage actor to his chilling performance as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs to his record-breaking Oscar win for The Father, Hopkins is a true juggernaut. However, his life hasn’t always been sunshine and roses.
Hopkins struggled with a serious drinking problem in his youth, leading him to give up booze entirely in 1975. He has also suffered from depression, and his family life has been anything but straightforward; he is estranged from his only daughter and doesn’t even know if he is a grandfather or not. As a result, working with the icon hasn’t always been easy.
“Tony is permanently in the grip of feelings he can’t control”. These are the words of David Hare, a playwright who worked alongside Hopkins in a production of King Lear. When on the set of 1984’s The Bounty, director Roger Donaldson said that he and the actor were “were ready to kill each other” and, in a separate interview with the BBC, he called him “the biggest pain in the arse” he’d ever worked with.
Through years of hard work and self-acceptance, Hopkins has been able to turn his life around and mend some of the fences he damaged in his younger years. He even patched things up with Donaldson, as the two worked together again on 2005’s The World’s Fastest Indian. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t think about his darker days, though, as he divulged in a 2010 interview with The Guardian.
“I wouldn’t have wanted to meet myself as I was 30 years ago,” he confessed. “I was horrible. No, I was just a bit confused, like all young people in the acting business. I look at them now and think, I’ve done all that, and try to smile about it. I don’t want to ever go back.” Aside from quitting drinking, Hopkins revealed that living outside of the Hollywood bubble has also helped him to calm down. “I don’t have any friends in the acting business,” he revealed. “I keep well away from them”.
When asked for his philosophy on socialising, he described it as, “do my own thing. Not answerable to anyone.”
In reference to a previous interview where he had described himself as “devious, cruel, cunning and addictive,” the actor claimed that those days were behind him. “I don’t think I’m devious any more,” he said. “Maybe I was in my drinking days. Devious? Well, I’m an actor – all actors are devious. What was the other one? Addictive? Well, yeah, I like all the bad things in life. I used to love the booze.”
He continued: “I like to do everything at great speed. That’s an addiction, I guess. But now I’ve deliberately turned the dial down. I don’t live at that pace any more.”
It takes a lot of courage to admit when you’ve gone astray and a lot of strength to work to correct past mistakes. Through his ongoing self-improvement, Hopkins has proven that he is both of those things – another reason to admire this incredible talent.
