Interview Quotes

The Epiphany of Sobriety and Self-Discovery

"I was drunk, driving my car here in California in a blackout. No clue where I was going. And it was a moment when I realised that I could have killed somebody or myself... And I realised that I was an alcoholic."

— Anthony Hopkins • 00:51:15

"Some deep, powerful thought or voice spoke to me from inside and said, it's all over. Now you can start living."

— Anthony Hopkins • 00:53:51

"My father said, I don't know what's going to happen to you. I don't know. But he was worried because... he'd spent a bit of money to give me an education and I wasn't capable of meeting that standard."

— Anthony Hopkins • 01:07:15

"At that moment, what I decided was to stop playing the game of being stupid and a dummy."

— Anthony Hopkins • 01:11:45

"Act as if it is impossible to fail. And that's what I did."

— Anthony Hopkins • 01:13:35

The Actor's Craft and Life's Mysteries

"I enjoy the scientific fun of it, of learning a script or learning all the lines and I'm very good at that. I learn everything there is to about the text that I'm studying because that reforms something in me and I suppose on a deep psychological level, I'm trying to escape from what I was."

— Anthony Hopkins • 02:42:00

"I'm not a monster. I am just a mechanic. I show up."

— Anthony Hopkins • 04:23:10

"It's an entertainment. Maybe it's an educational way of entertaining. So it has no deeper importance. Not dismissing it, but I'm just saying, you know, if I start taking myself too seriously, I do think it's only a job. It's only, it's only acting."

— Anthony Hopkins • 04:32:45

"The miracle is, I look at my hands, you know, my hands are an 87-year-old man's hands. I'm slowing down. But the miracle of it is I'm still here."

— Anthony Hopkins • 04:51:10

Reflections on Relationships and Remoteness

"My wife, Stella, sent an invitation to come and see us. Not a word of response. So I think, okay, fine. I wish her well, but I'm not going to waste blood over that."

— Anthony Hopkins • 05:30:55

"We are imperfect. We're not saints. We're all sinners and saints or whatever we are. We do the best we can. Life is painful."

— Anthony Hopkins • 05:41:30

"I don't have any close friends. I'm, I'm, I'm a little distant, a little suspicious, I suppose. I'm comfortable just chuntering along through my, my slightly isolated life."

— Anthony Hopkins • 06:30:15

"Stay in the shade. Don't go to the camera. Let it come to you."

— Humphrey Bogart (as quoted by Anthony Hopkins) • 07:01:40

The Nature of God and Legacy

"I knew that was a power way beyond my understanding. Not up there in the clouds, but here, in here. So I chose to call it at that moment, God."

— Anthony Hopkins • 07:36:50

"Maggie Smith said, what a final curtain."

— Maggie Smith (as quoted by Anthony Hopkins) • 08:19:55

"The only meaning I can put to it is that everything I sought and yearn for found me. I didn't find it. It came to me."

— Anthony Hopkins • 08:42:05

The Power of Poetry and Belonging

"It's a warm wind, The West Wind Full of birds' cries I never hear the West Wind But tears are in my eyes For it comes from the West Lands The old brown hills And aprils in the West Wind And daffodils"

— John Macefield (as read by Anthony Hopkins) • 09:07:50

"To the green grass The cool grass The rest for heart and head To the violence and the warm hearts And the thrush's song In the fine land The west land The land where I belong"

— John Macefield (as read by Anthony Hopkins) • 09:14:15