Sir Anthony Hopkins, regarded as one of the finest performers of our time, has revealed that he was an alcoholic and an agnostic until a chance encounter led him to God.
There is no doubt that Anthony Hopkins is a brilliant actor, having played roles ranging from the pinnacle of evil to men of faith. However, as an alcoholic and atheist at the age of 37, the Oscar-winning actor found himself in the depths of misery.
Hopkins had a drinking problem in New York in 1975 that was so severe that he felt possessed. “It was like being possessed by a devil—an addiction that I couldn’t break,” revealed the Welsh actor. “And there are millions of individuals like that everywhere.” “I couldn’t stop myself.” In his drunken stupors, the Silence of the Lambs star knew he was a risk to not just himself but also everyone around him.
That’s what brought him to Alcoholics Anonymous, where a woman’s remarks during an AA meeting altered his life and began his road to religion. “Why don’t you just trust God?” the woman said. It was something Hopkins had never attempted before. But, desperate as he was, he reasoned, “Why not?” Everything changed for the desperate actor when he decided to believe and trust in God.
“I couldn’t quit [drinking], but I just begged for a little assistance, and, boom.” “It was like bingo,” Hopkins remembered. Almost miraculously, after a leap of faith, the desire to drink was removed from him, never to return. And he’s been believing in God ever since, laboring day after day, year after year, to strengthen his faith.
When asked if he believed in God during a CNN interview with Piers Morgan, erstwhile atheist Anthony Hopkins responded emphatically, “Yes, I do.” The Legends of the Fall star also spoke out against atheist celebrities. “I wouldn’t want to live like that, would you?” Hopkins explained. “We see them on television now, mind you—many smart individuals who are professional atheists who declare they know for a fact that having a God or believing in religion is insane,” he said.
“Well, OK,” Hopkins said. “God bless them for feeling that way, and I hope they’re happy.” “But I couldn’t live with that assurance, and I’m curious about some of them: why are they protesting so vehemently? “How do they know what’s out there?” “And who am I to challenge the views of so many great intellectuals and martyrs throughout history?”
There is no doubt that Anthony Hopkins adores Jesus Christ. The journalist confronted Hopkins in a little-known interview with the Romanian press, asking, “Doesn’t doubt engender terror in the minds of religious people?”
“No, no,” Hopkins said. “Who was the guy two thousand years ago, when they were preparing to stone the lady caught in adultery to death?” “And two thousand years ago, that guy said, ‘Cast you the first stone who has not sinned,’” he claimed. “He was fond of sinners, drunks, and prostitutes.” He spent time with them because He recognized their vulnerability, then came along and lit them up.”
Later in the same interview, Hopkins is asked to whom he attributes his success, and he once again invokes the Bible. “He declared two thousand years ago, ‘Of myself I am nothing; it is the Father who within doeth the deeds’… the kingdom of heaven within,” Hopkins explained. “I take no credit for anything.”
The actor also emphasized humility and suffering in one’s life as “the keys to unlocking the quest for a divine existence.” Anthony Hopkins seemed to have been on a lifelong journey of faith that began in the despair of alcoholism, and inside that suffering and carrying that burden, he turned to the light of God.
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