Hollywood Star Reveals He Was Driven By ‘Anger, Resentment, and Revenge’

Veteran Hollywood legend and Welsh actor Anthony Hopkins has lifted the lid on what drove him to succeed as an actor during a recent interview. According to the 87-year-old, he was fueled by a desire to prove those who doubted him wrong and determined to make something of himself.

Anthony Hopkins Driven By ‘Anger, Resentment, and Revenge’

While speaking to the BBC in an interview to promote his upcoming memoir “We Did OK, Kid,” the veteran actor honestly spoke about his troubled early life and the way that few people thought he would make anything of himself. 

He told the interviewer that he was often bullied while at school by his fellow students, who poked fun at him for his appearance. Struggling with his studies at schools in Port Talbot and Pontypool, where he preferred to focus more on the arts rather than schoolwork, he was also written off by his teachers.

According to Hopkins, this led to teachers and his own parents believing that he was a “dunce” and would be unlikely to achieve anything. In some instances, he was even hit by his teachers for focusing more on playing the piano, painting, and reading Shakespeare rather than his schoolwork. 

This lack of belief in his ability and the constant putting down instilled a sense of determination in Hopkins. He reveals it “gave me a core of anger, resentment, and revenge.”

Hopkins reveals that “the turning point” in his life came about in 1955 when he received his final school report at the age of 17. The damning contents led his father to have a discussion with him. “What’s going to happen to you?” Hopkins remembers his father asking him. “I said: ‘One day, I’ll show you, both of you’.”

Giving an honest account of his feelings, Hopkins also revealed that he is happy that his parents lived long enough in order to see him succeed as an actor so that he could have the satisfaction of proving them wrong. 

Anthony Hopkins Made Realization At Alcoholics Anonymous

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Hopkins, who starred in the 1991 film “The Silence of the Lambs” as Hannibal Lecter also recently made an admission of the exact moment when he knew he had to make a change in his personal life. Having abused alcohol for many years, the actor suddenly stopped drinking after an incident where he became black out drunk and drove in California. When he finally came to a stop, it instantly hit him that he could have easily killed himself or someone else.

During the BBC interview, Hopkins explains that his alcoholism likely emerged because of the way he was outcast and mistreated during his childhood. He recalls a time during his first meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous when he understood that everyone there was a misfit.

“They’re all misfits like me,” he explains. “Like all of us. We feel we never belong. We feel self-hatred. All of us are the same. I’m not alone.”

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