Sir Anthony Hopkins expressed shame over the ugly side of his personality his alcoholism triggered.
The Silence of the Lambs Oscar-winner spent years drinking heavily and has now used his new memoir We Did OK, Kid, to reflect on his decades-long recovery.
“I was beginning to lose control of my life. I would pick fights,” he wrote in his book of alcoholism bringing out the worst of him.
“I would attack directors if they dared to look at me the wrong way, and they had a right because they were directing,” he added.
The Hannibal actor continued, “I could turn very nasty, nasty, and that is the ugly side of alcoholism. It brought out a brutal side of me. I am not proud of it at all.”
The actor also described how heavy drinking used to be part of an actor’s image.
Sir Anthony wrote, “In those days, being an actor, you know, you are a rebel, and everyone wanted to be Marlon Brando or James Dean, and so drinking was a tribute.”
“You would get fun to a point. I was lucky to hear a little voice one day say, ‘It is going to kill you,’” he further mentioned.
Sir Anthony Hopkins said the change in his life came when he realised he had to stop punishing those around him.
“We do because we have to survive, unless we control it, unless we find ways of, you know, finding ways around it every day, we can come up with, you know, punishing ideas and quarrelsomeness, as I did, but you have to stop. You have to say, ‘OK, I can’t do this. People don’t deserve this,’” he concluded.