Anthony Hopkins Recalls the Exact Moment He Realized He Was an Alcoholic: ‘I Could Have Killed Somebody’

Anthony Hopkins is reflecting on a major turning point in his life. 

While discussing his upcoming memoir, We Did OK, Kid, during the Oct. 25 episode of The New York Times podcast The Interview, the Academy Award winner, 87, recounted the exact moment he realized he was an alcoholic. 

“I was drunk and driving my car here in California in a blackout, no clue where I was going, when I realized that I could have killed somebody — or myself, which I didn’t care about,” he told the outlet. “I came to my senses and said to an ex-agent of mine at this party in Beverly Hills, ‘I need help.’ ” 

He continued, “It was 11 o’clock precisely — I looked at my watch — and this is the spooky part: Some deep, powerful thought or voice spoke to me from inside and said: ‘It’s all over. Now you can start living. And it has all been for a purpose, so don’t forget one moment of it.’ ”

The Silence of the Lambs star went on to recall that the voice — which he described as “vocal, male, reasonable, like a radio voice” — completely removed his desire to drink. 

“The craving to drink was taken from me, or left. Now I don’t have any theories except divinity or that power that we all possess inside us that creates us from birth, life force, whatever it is,” Hopkins said. “It’s a consciousness, I believe. That’s all I know.”

Reflecting on his struggles with alcohol, Hopkins said that after enduring a “lonely” childhood and surviving “those bullies,” he drank to “nullify that discomfort or whatever it was in me, because it made me feel big.”

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“You know, booze is terrific because it makes you instantly feel in a different space,” he explained. “Actors in those days — Peter O’Toole, Richard Burton, all of them — I remember those drinking sessions, thinking: ‘This is the life. We’re rebels, we’re outsiders, we can celebrate.’ And at the back of the mind is: ‘It’ll kill you as well.’ Those guys I worked with have all gone.”

As for himself, Hopkins said he feels grateful that he’s “still here.”

“There are monstrous difficulties in life and you take notice of them. But finally, approaching 88 years of age, I wake up in the morning going: ‘I’m still here. How?’ ” the Remains of the Day star pondered. “I don’t know. But whatever’s keeping me here, thank you very much! Much obliged!”

Last December, the Hannibal actor celebrated a significant milestone: 49 years of sobriety. “Forty-nine years ago today, I stopped,” Hopkins said in a Dec. 29 Instagram video. “And I was having such fun. But then I realized I was in big, big trouble because I couldn’t remember anything and I was driving a car drunk out of my skull.”

“Then on that fatal day, I realized I needed help. So I got it,” he continued. “I phoned up a group of people like me — alcoholic. And that was it. Sober. I’ve had more fun these 49 years than ever.”

Hopkins’ memoir, We Did OK, Kid, will be published on Nov. 4.