Why Hopkins runs on rage

Anthony Hopkins feeds off his anger, said Miranda Sawyer in TheGuardian.com. The prolific, 80-year-old Welsh actor, who won an Oscar in 1992 for playing the cannibalistic killer Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, inherited an inner fury from his father, a baker who drank hard and had “sudden turns of rage” that were followed by deep depressions. In Wales, Hopkins said, men are raised to ignore their feelings or drink them away. “There’s nothing soft or touchy-feely about any of us,” he says. “We’re not very good at receiving love or giving it. We don’t understand it.” Hopkins, too, became an alcoholic, though he quit drinking in 1975. He seemed to lose some verve, so his mother told him, “Why don’t you just be the bastard you really are? You’re a monster. Be a monster.” Now he thinks the emotional “abyss” that leads to alcoholism can be a motivational “gift” if channeled properly. “It’s a volcanic anger, and it’s fuel. Rocket fuel. But of course it can rip you to pieces and kill you.” Content with being a “loner” dedicated to his work, he’s estranged from his only child, the singer and actress Abigail Hopkins. “I accepted it years ago. It’s her choice and she must live her life.”