Crossroads Podcast: The Miracle That Changed Sir Anthony Hopkins’ Life
People caught in the chaotic highways around Los Angeles have been known to shout at God from time to time — often in the form of angry curses aimed at other drivers.
But that was the mysterious setting in which Anthony Hopkins had a quiet epiphany in which God quietly spoke to him, offering the actor — an atheist and alcoholic at the time — a choice that changed his life.
While most episodes of “Crossroads” focus on religious issues in news coverage, this week’s podcast was quite different. The hook for my discussion with host Todd Wilken was a New York Times interview in which Hopkins described, in often cryptic language, an “epiphany” that made him the man and movie legend that he is today.
This is the key passage in the question-and-answer feature — “Anthony Hopkins on Quitting Drinking and Finding God” — starting with a David Marchese question drawn from the actor’s new memoir, “We Did OK, Kid.”
We all have turning points in our lives, but you have such a specific one — a moment that changed everything for you. Can you tell me about what happened on Dec. 29, 1975, at 11 o’clock?
I’m always slightly reluctant to talk about it because I don’t want to sound preachy. But 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 — and I realized that I was an alcoholic. I came to my senses and said to an ex-agent of mine at this party in Beverly Hills, “I need help.” 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.”
It was just a voice from the blue?
From deep inside me. But it was vocal, male, reasonable, like a radio voice. 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. It’s a consciousness, I believe.
That isn’t the only “epiphany” — Hopkins uses the term — in the story. The question, of course, is what that word means in this context. In my opinion, that’s the question that haunts this interview and other mainstream press coverage of Hopkins that I have seen in recent years.
What is an “epiphany” or even the “Epiphany”? The Merriam-Webster Dictionary offers a long and complex definition. Here is the top of that:
— Capitalized: Jan. 6 observed as a church festival in commemoration of the coming of the Magi as the first manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles or in the Eastern Church in commemoration of the baptism of Christ
— An appearance or manifestation especially of a divine being
— a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something …
Hopkins clearly uses the term to describe encounters with God or a “Higher Power.” Then again, he also uses “epiphany” to describe turning points in his life that, later, he believes God urged him to remember with thanksgiving.
In the Times, Marchese makes it clear that Hopkins is an understated, “reticent” and even “solitary” man who uses language very carefully. The term “cold fish” may apply and the actor’s wife has suggested that he is on the autism spectrum, using the now avoided term Asperger’s syndrome.
However, Hopkin’s has been known to lower his guard in some interesting settings. Readers may want to dig into a Rational Sheep post in which I discussed some interesting events and remarks linked to his journey from atheism to, well, some form of faith that he struggles to describe.
Here is the overture to that earlier post: “A few moments with Sir Anthony Hopkins … Talking to Catholic students at one of the ‘most beautiful places’ he had ever seen.”
Imagine that you are doing whatever work you are supposed to be doing at the Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity Chapel at the small Thomas Aquinas College in Southern California. Then a man — who was cruising past on California Highway 150 — quietly enters and begins asking questions.
The chapel’s lofty bell tower and dome, he explained, were one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen and he wanted to know if he could look around. What was this college all about?
Now, this man didn’t say any obvious words that would have revealed his identity, such as “chianti,” “fava beans” or “Clarice.”
Hopkins returned to Thomas Aquinas College to share his views on acting and his career. Then he returned again to play some of the piano music that he loves to perform, including one of his own compositions. He also is a poet and a painter.
Apparently, Hopkins frequently thinks about life and faith while at the wheel of an automobile. Here is another section of the Times interview:
There’s another epiphany in the book that I’d like to go back to. You were driving in Los Angeles in the late ’70s, and you felt a pull to go over to a Catholic church. You went inside and told a young priest there that you had found God. What is God to you?
What happened that morning — when that voice said: “It’s over. Now you can start living and it has all been for a purpose” — I knew that was a power way beyond my understanding. Not up there in the clouds but in here. I chose to call it God. I didn’t know what else to call it. Short word, “God.” Easy to spell. I recently wrote a piece of music that was conducted in Riyadh, a goodbye on piano and orchestra. [The piece was called “Farewell, My Love.”] And as I was composing, it came to me that that’s it. We come full circle and we dip down to that’s all, folks, it was all a dream anyway.
At the age of 87, Hopkin’s has every reason to meditate on mortality and what is beyond. What struck me when reading this latest interview is the degree to which this film legend is, above all, thankful for his life, his career and the gifts that he has been given — especially after he was released from the hell of alcoholism.
I will conclude with another long excerpt from the Times interview. This is how it ends:
I remember I was asked by the widow of Laurence Olivier, Joan Plowright, if I would read the last lines of “King Lear” at the casket in this little church in Sussex. I was astounded that I was asked to do it. There was Olivier’s casket, full of the wreaths and flowers. And after that we got into our cars and went to the crematorium. I was sitting next to the great actress Maggie Smith, and there was the casket, and finally, as you could hear the rollers taking him into the crematorium, into the flames, Maggie Smith said, “What a final curtain.” And you think, God almighty, what is it all about? The wonder of all that energy that had gone into his life or anyone’s life. The energy that goes into survival. Seeing my own father dying, going to the hospital the night he died and standing at the foot of his bed, my mother smoothing his hair. I felt his feet at the foot of the bed. They were dead cold. He’d gone. And as I stood there that silent night in that empty-sounding hospital in South Wales, a voice again came to me: “You’re not so hot either. This is what will happen to you.”
That’s a fairly brusque voice.
Yeah, but what it is, it’s an awakening. We think, Yeah, that’s right.
Sir Anthony, I realize I’m dancing around a question that I’d like your answer to. Do you think your life has had meaning?
The only meaning I can put to it is that everything I sought and yearned for found me. I didn’t find it. It came to me.
As so frequently happens when reading features of this kind, I was left wondering why journalists appear to be tone deaf when encountering spiritual language of this kind.
Why not ask: “Sir Anthony, you have made it clear that you believe God has spoken to you. Do you pray, in response to that?” What about this question: “Sir Anthony, you say that you have been inspired to visit Catholic sanctuaries. Are you a Christian? A Catholic? An Anglican?”
Hopkins has said God offered him a choice between life and death. He chose life and is thankful for the healing he was granted in that encounter.
As for me, I am curious. I want to know more. What we need is a solid interview with Sir Anthony by strong Catholic journalists at The Pillar. Perhaps Ross Douthat at the Times, or my friend (a former film critic) Rod Dreher?
Enjoy the podcast and, please, pass it along to others.