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A RAW AND PASSIONATE MEMOIR FROM A COMPLEX, ICONIC MAN WHO HAS INSPIRED AUDIENCES WITH REMARKABLE PERFORMANCES FOR MORE THAN SIXTY YEARS
Born and raised in Port Talbot amid war and depression, Sir Anthony Hopkins grew up around men who were tough and eschewed any emotional vulnerability. A student who struggled in school, Sir Anthony was deemed by his peers, his parents and other adults as a failure with no future ahead of him. But on a fateful Saturday night, he watched the 1948 film adaptation of Hamlet and a passion sparked within him, marking the beginning of a path that no one could have predicted.
With candour and vulnerability, Sir Anthony recounts his career milestones and provides a rare look into the brilliance behind some of his most iconic roles – from his admission to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art to joining the Royal National Theatre as Laurence Olivier’s understudy and meeting his hero Richard Burton. And we learn how he used the stoicism of his father and grandfather for his unforgettable performance in King Lear.
Sir Anthony also takes a deeply honest look at his personal life, from the addiction which destroyed his first two marriages and estranged him from his only child, to a near-death experience that propelled him towards nearly fifty years of sobriety. And, as the years go by, he is getting ready to discover what his father called the Big Secret.
Through it all, there has been one constant fixture in Sir Anthony’s life: a small picture of little Tony at age three that he carries with him everywhere. Having come so far from the anxious child he once was, he can’t help but say to his young self, ‘We did OK, kid.’
Published October 28, 2025