Anthony Hopkins: 'No matter how much success you have, it's not going to fix you
From ‘hopeless’ Port Talbot schoolboy to elder statesman of Hollywood. From self-destructive and angry to ‘at peace’. And from Hannibal Lecter to, in his new film, Pope Benedict XVI. An audience with Sir Anthony Hopkins
At the age of 81, Sir Anthony Hopkins, star of film and theatre, painter and pianist, has found a new, and perhaps rather surprising, outlet for his talents. It was the actor Mark Wahlberg, with whom he was working on a film called Transformers: The Last Knight three years ago, who alerted Hopkins to the mixed delights of Twitter, and now he is hardly off it. Anyone wishing for an insight into the life and state of mind of Anthony Hopkins need look no further.
There he is, mugging madly for the camera and dancing a gentle jig in front of one of his colourful, neo-expressionist paintings – Hopkins is an accomplished artist; there he is, sitting at his piano with his tabby cat on his lap playing Gershwin – an accomplished musician, too; and there he is, singing along at a dinner party to Leonard Cohen’s Here It Is.
‘Oh yes, Leonard Cohen’s my favourite.’ In the hotel suite in Santa Monica where we are talking, he sinks back into the sofa, and quotes a line from the song. ‘“May everyone live, May everyone die, Hello, my love, And my love, goodbye.” That sums it all up for me. There’s such peace in that. That’s it. All it is.’
His assistant has prepared for his arrival: a pot of English breakfast tea and biscuits. Old habits die hard. (Hopkins has listed ‘the pleasures of my life’ as ‘a cat, a piano, a book, and a cup of tea’.) He is wearing a vivid Hawaiian shirt, baggy trousers, a pair of huaraches, no socks: a heavy-set man, almost bullish, with a fine dusting of white hair, mild eyes, a cheerful look on his face.
At the age of 81, Sir Anthony Hopkins, star of film and theatre, painter and pianist, has found a new, and perhaps rather surprising, outlet for his talents. It was the actor Mark Wahlberg, with whom he was working on a film called Transformers: The Last Knight three years ago, who alerted Hopkins to the mixed delights of Twitter, and now he is hardly off it. Anyone wishing for an insight into the life and state of mind of Anthony Hopkins need look no further.
There he is, mugging madly for the camera and dancing a gentle jig in front of one of his colourful, neo-expressionist paintings – Hopkins is an accomplished artist; there he is, sitting at his piano with his tabby cat on his lap playing Gershwin – an accomplished musician, too; and there he is, singing along at a dinner party to Leonard Cohen’s Here It Is.
‘Oh yes, Leonard Cohen’s my favourite.’ In the hotel suite in Santa Monica where we are talking, he sinks back into the sofa, and quotes a line from the song. ‘“May everyone live, May everyone die, Hello, my love, And my love, goodbye.” That sums it all up for me. There’s such peace in that. That’s it. All it is.’
His assistant has prepared for his arrival: a pot of English breakfast tea and biscuits. Old habits die hard. (Hopkins has listed ‘the pleasures of my life’ as ‘a cat, a piano, a book, and a cup of tea’.) He is wearing a vivid Hawaiian shirt, baggy trousers, a pair of huaraches, no socks: a heavy-set man, almost bullish, with a fine dusting of white hair, mild eyes, a cheerful look on his face.
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| Playing Hannibal Lecter has followed me around for years' CREDIT: GREGORY HARRIS / TRUNKARCHIVE.CO |
Hopkins lives in Los Angeles. He first came here in 1973, escaping from Britain and what he feared would be a future as a Shakespearean actor – as he once put it, standing in the wings at the Old Vic in ‘wrinkled tights, thinking, “Oh God, another endless production” for the rest of eternity’. His first job on arriving in California was a film with Goldie Hawn. He returned to Britain in the 1980s as a Hollywood star, but California, it seems, had stayed in his blood. Twenty-five years ago he came back, and here he has stayed ever since.
He now lives with his wife, Stella Arroyave, in a house in Malibu, perched on a cliff overlooking the Pacific – a house that was once owned by Hawn. He laughs at the circularity.
People have talked in the past of Hopkins’ brooding silences, an almost sinister hint around the eyes – a confusion, perhaps, with his most famous character, Hannibal Lecter (‘That’s followed me around for years…’
he says, lightly brushing it aside). But that must be a different Anthony Hopkins; it’s certainly not this one, who is a picture of serene bonhomie.
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| Hopkins with his wife, Stella Arroyave, on the red carpet in 2017 CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK |
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