Sir Anthony Hopkins, at 87 and approaching his 88th birthday, has released a brutally honest memoir that lays bare decades of personal demons. «I couldn't take credit for any of it, I couldn't have planned any of this - and now at 87, about to turn 88, I get up in the morning and I think, 'Hello, I'm still here,' and I still don't get it,» Hopkins told the BBC. The book, "We Did OK, Kid," published by Simon and Schuster, departs sharply from typical celebrity autobiographies with its unflinching candor about alcoholism, failed relationships, and an estranged daughter.
The Welsh-born actor remains remarkably active despite recent hardship. In January, wildfires destroyed his Pacific Palisades home while he and wife Stella Arroyave were in Saudi Arabia for a concert of his music. He recently completed filming with director Guy Ritchie and has two more projects lined up in Britain and Wales. Hopkins also made headlines with a viral social media post featuring Kim Kardashian's Skims face wraps, playfully telling her: «Hello, Kim. I'm already feeling 10 years younger.»
50 Years of Sobriety
The memoir confronts Hopkins' darkest period head-on. On December 29, 1975, after a blackout drunk drive through Los Angeles, Hopkins attended his first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. «I was insane, I was nuts, I couldn't remember half the journey,» he recalled in the Guardian. The moment marked a turning point: «Suddenly, something said 'it's all over, now you can start living'... the craving left and it's never come back.» He describes in his book how alcohol «brought out a brutal monster side of me» - a confession made without pride or excuse.
The Daughter He Lost
Hopkins' deepest regret centers on his estranged daughter Abigail, from his first marriage to Petronella Barker. He walked out on the marriage in 1969, writing in his memoir: "after realising I was unfit as a father for Abigail, I vowed not to have any more children... I couldn't do to another child what I'd done to her." The pain resurfaced powerfully when Hopkins played King Lear at age 80 in 2018. "The line that hit me harder than perhaps any other I've ever spoken was 'I did her wrong'," he wrote. "Saying those words, I felt deeply, perhaps for the first time in my life, how I had hurt my own daughter." He adds simply: "I hope my daughter knows that my door is always open to her."
The Devil Inside
Hopkins' most iconic role - Hannibal Lecter in "The Silence of the Lambs" - emerged from understanding his own darkness. He wrote in his memoir: «instinctively sensed how to play Hannibal. I have the devil in me. We all have the devil in us, I know what scares people.» His method was counterintuitive: «Do not play the monster. Play a quiet, friendly version,» he advised himself. He drew on influences from Bela Lugosi's Dracula to HAL 9000, creating a character «at once remote and awake.» The role brought Hopkins his first Oscar in 1992 and remains terrifying over 30 years later. His approach to acting traces back to advice from Katharine Hepburn during "The Lion in Winter" in 1968. She told the young Hopkins: «just speak the lines... Don't act, just do it.»
Hopkins reflects philosophically on his improbable journey from Port Talbot, Wales - where teachers called him «a brainless carthorse» - to two-time Oscar winner. «It's such a miracle being alive,» he told the BBC, pondering humanity's capacity for both Beethoven and Auschwitz. His wife Stella believes he may be on the autism spectrum, given his «proclivity for memorisation and repetition... and my lack of emotionality.» Hopkins prefers the term «cold fish.» At nearly 88, he continues working with characteristic discipline, memorizing scripts exhaustively. He faces mortality with equanimity: «Most of my friends have died, they're gone, God bless them. I hope to be around a little longer. But even that, I'm thinking, 'oh well, I had a good time'.»
Note: This article was created with Artificial Intelligence (AI).
