Just So Stories

• Simon & Schuster Australia
• October, 2025
• ISBN13: 9781761634819
• LIST PRICE: AU$ 55.00 / NZ$ 65.00

Still looking for ideas for gifts? Or, like me, and just keep seeing things I know somebody I know would love. If you have family or friend interested in memoirs and/or acting, this is a superb choice.

I read it over 4 nights and while some of it was a bit close to home for me, it was a fascinating and no-holds-barred insight into one of my all-time favourite actors.

Sir Anthony Hopkins, now 87, (with his birthday coming up on 31st December) is one of the greatest Welsh creatives of all time IMO. But the story of his life is even more engaging than any role he’s played for all that. Son of a baker and regarded as slow, stupid and stolid as a child right through to his teens, there was something in his personality that made him truculent, mulishly defiant and completely self-deprecating.

But when he discovered acting – really, by chance, when forced to go along to the local YMCA youth group – something was sparked in him that propelled him headlong into the one of the most enduring and successful careers of all time.

Spanning over 70 years of acting, just think of some of his iconic roles. There have been so many, but for me the favourites are his performances in The Remains of the Day and The World’s Fastest Indian.

Due to the personal experiences close to home, the chapters on his alcoholism, which led to the breakdown of his first two marriages as well as the estrangement from his only child, were difficult. I completely understand that some readers might be triggered by incidents or references as they read, but there’s a huge difference in the responses [and some people make heavy weather over nothing, just to make themselves a centre of attention – in the case of a recent incident that came to my attention]. For myself, it was more a nodding and a sadness as I recognised that decline and retreat into the bottle that is so bloody self-destructive. Anthony is one of the lucky ones. He was able to beat it and has done so now for 50 years – others have not been so fortunate.

But that part of his life is a relatively small part of this memoir as he describes his good fortune in roles, his growth as an actor, his willingness to stretch himself into roles that, at first thought, were completely unsuited to himself. Can you honestly even contemplate anyone else being Hannibal Lecter?

His abiding fondness and pride in his homeland of Wales was a big plus in my eyes. So many ‘celebrities’ seem to be all too keen to discard and bury their more humble roots or their origins [case in point, a cousin of mine who thought her second-rate career justified not admitting her suburban working-class Sydney roots]. I love that Sir Anthony was not one of these, and I actually found it heart-warming that in the backmatter he took real time to thank people who have become important to him and supported him – not just a one-liner mention.

Like us, he has gathered a family to him from those he has met and with whom he has connected on a deeper level. It was a great insight into his personality, which one could certainly assume has more than a little dash of oddity (whether an actual name-able condition or just quirkiness).

If not for a friend – get it for yourself (after all, you definitely deserve it!) – it makes a great gift and I give it a full Welsh dragon 5 🐉🐉🐉🐉🐉for general reading. Happy birthday to Sir Anthony!