- Life's so short and such glorious images in the world
and such horror as well
that I want to see it all.
I know people who live in the past,
they just live back there all the time,
talk about something that happens to them 30 years ago,
they're like zombies.
Be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid
and I believe that about everything.
We have to make our lives because life is tough,
we have to believe in the power of life.
- He's a Welsh actor on film, stage and television.
He's considered to be one of the world's
greatest living actors
and is most well known for his role as Hannibal Lecter
in the Silence of the Lambs.
- Every thing you need to find him
is right there in those pages.
- Since 2016 he's starred in the critically acclaimed
HBO series, Westworld.
He's Anthony Hopkins and here's my take
on his top 10 rules to success.
Rule number one is my personal favorite
and I'm super curious to figure out which one
you guys like the best.
Also as you're watching the clips
if you hear something that really resonates with you
please it down in the comments below
and put quotes around it so other people can be inspired
as well when you write something down
it's much more likely to stick with you too.
Enjoy.
(upbeat instrumental music)
- Do something new,
you know you've got to, you can't stay in your comfort zone,
that's what we all do.
We get to a certain age and we all stay in our comfort zone
in our recliners watching television, day in and day out,
and when you get to a certain age,
I'm going to be 70 at the end of the year,
why sit around watching television for the rest of my life
cause I've done it all, sitting on my laurel wreaths.
It's not worth it, I mean life's so short
and such glorious images in the world,
and such horror as well,
that I want to see it all,
so I've moved out of my comfort zone.
It's essential for me, otherwise I may as well die.
So I've done it, I've broken every rule in the book,
and not out of malice or any telling anyone
that I'll show you, I did it to show myself.
I've shown myself, I looked in the mirror
and thought, I'll show you one day
and I've done something completely new,
I wrote the music and feel limitless.
Once I got started with two magicians
and one ventriloquist helped me,
once I got the knack of it,
it became easier and then I enjoyed it.
There were moments when I was learning the script
and I thought well this isn't going to work,
I mean, how can I do it?
I used to write notes to myself,
little letters to myself and put them on the desk
saying, you know, "You can do anything,
"with faith you can move mountains.
"Trust and let go."
and all that sort of thing, you know
and I just threw myself into it
and when the negatives came to my mind
I would, I would make positive sounds in my head,
I'd say I can do it, you know.
I used to meditate and visualize myself doing it.
I still visualize myself on like a kind of,
trying to visual myself doing those sort of fanning cards
and spinning them and gradually,
it's surprising the power of mind,
what happens you know, your muscles begin to respond.
It's like anything really, if you're playing the piano
or driving the car, it comes through relaxation.
- [Audience Member] Your approach to life,
has it changed through your acting experience?
- Yes, whether you just get older
and you live long enough you change,
(audience laughing)
if you don't you may as well die.
(audience laughing)
You know, go or grow,
you have to change
and I've realized over the years
that I've gone through many changes in my life.
Many changes, because that's the nature of life
and if you don't go with it
you may as well die, really, you may as well be dead.
I know people who live in the past,
they just live there all the time,
talk about something that happens to them 30 years ago.
They're like zombies
and I can't hang out with those people,
I know them
but I can't spend more than five minutes with them
because I feel like suicide at the end of it
because I feel so guilty about being happy
when they're so miserable.
(audience laughing)
Because life is in session,
for many years I thought life was a big rehearsal
for the big event and somebody in Los Angeles said,
"Tony, this is the big event, life is in session."
You know we spend so much time thinking into rehearsal
for the big event, the big, red carpet in the sky
and there's not.
All life is magical, it is magic you see
because we're the instruments
and all the problems are technical,
once you can go through those problems
without avoiding them or backing off from them,
because you know it's like fear, you go through it,
you go through the problem, confront it and go through it,
then you have release.
Stanislavsky called it the plane of inspiration
that takes off the runway, the runway is the technique,
the runway is the getting on with it
and the plane will take off.
If on Tuesday night however it doesn't quite take off,
it doesn't matter, you can't stop the plane and say,
"Well I'll go back cause I don't feel it tonight."
You get on with it technically
and then on Wednesday night,
probably it's going to take off again
as long as you're relaxed.
But it really is, it's kind of being on automatic pilot,
and I think it comes after experience, I think it comes.
And I think I feel in a happy state of mind now
that I have 15 years or 20 years of experience behind me
and I think it's used well
and there's a lot of positive
out of all the anguish and the pain and discomfort
and there have been good times
and there have been negative times.
But Olivier said once, when he was directing Colin Blakely
in June and the Peacock and I was in June and the Peacock
and he said, "You have to find the middle man."
And Blakely said, "What do you mean?"
He said, "Find the middle man,
"that ease of playing a character."
And Blakely said, "I only have until next week."
And he said, "You won't do it next week,
"it'll take you the rest of your life."
And it's really relaxing and letting go.
You know the booster that puts you into outer orbit,
the aggression, the arrogance
and the ambition and all that,
that's all very necessary,
but there's a time when one has to let go
and I guess I'm in orbit
and all I have to do is rest assured that it's going to be okay
and do what is required of me, you know.
Keep in practice, keep working,
I'm going back to the theater,
I want to go back to the theater.
And I'm being kind to myself,
that's all I can say really,
then the magic happens,
Scofield is right, you get on with it,
John Dexter told me in New York, he said,
"Just get on with it, don't analyze, do it."
- What's the most important quality
that an actor, a great actor like you, should have?
What's the most important quality,
apart from intelligence, I suppose, but?
- Well, I'm going to be modest,
I'm a working actor, I just go from job to job
and I think there's,
I have a sense of discipline and commitment to it
and all those American words, but,
know what you're doing
and I have fun with it.
I always tell that to young actors I'm working with,
I say, enjoy it, stop figuring it all out, just enjoy it.
If it doesn't work, it doesn't work
and if you do something bad it doesn't matter
and you do something which may be good, that's good,
but don't worry about it it's all part of life's process.
- Nixon must of been one of the most difficult roles
you ever played?
- Rose, that was a nightmare role to play, yes.
(laughing)
I got a phone call in England many years ago
and my agent said, "Oliver Stone wants to talk to you."
and I said, "Oliver Stone, what does he want me for?"
He said, "For Nixon."
I said, "Nixon?"
Well he said, "President Nixon."
I said, "What part?"
He said, "President Nixon."
I said "For President Nixon, are you crazy?"
I said, "No, he must be mad."
And he phoned me up and he said,
"Well, I hear you're chicken, you don't want to do it."
I said, "Well, I don't want to do you a disservice."
He said, "Well I'm coming into London anyway
"at the beginning of next week so lets meet anyway
"even though you don't want to do it."
I said, "Okay."
So I was on my way to the hotel to meet him
and I had that moment of clarity
when I, in the middle of Hyde Park,
and I thought I can either work
with this great American director,
make a complete idiot of myself,
or I can stay safe here in Britain working for the BBC,
go off to Hungary to make a Dostoevsky film or something,
something boring like that.
(audience laughing)
And you know stay happy for the rest of my life
and die of a heart attack and that'll be the end of it,
but I thought well, I'll just do something
that's really challenging.
So I met Oliver Stone for breakfast that very morning,
and half an hour later I said, "I'll do it."
He said, "Great."
So there we were and I believe that be bold
and mighty forces will come to your aid
and I believe that about everything, you know,
so I don't do anything that's conventional.
When I approached magic I just showed up,
I did a lot of preparation,
all I have to do is be ready I guess
and I try to apply it to my life now
and I just have to get ready, you know.
I just have to do what is asked of me
and do as much as I can without driving myself insane,
because there's a negative side of perfectionism.
In my nature anyway, I can only speak for myself.
There's a negative flaw and that is a very dangerous trap
and I think that one of the biggest killers is ego
and whence the negative side of perfectionism,
when one starts playing God, you know,
and I mean literally, that it is a killer,
that it is a lethal part of one owns ego.
I went to the movies and I saw Brando
and I became an actor.
I saw James Dean and I always felt I wanted to be like that,
but I thought I'm stuck with a funny accent
in this place in Britain
and then I read Jack Kerouac's On the Road
and I read Look Homeward Angel, I was about 19 or 20,
something like that and I had this taste for America.
And I had this taste for rebellion and the darkness
and so this is what I wanted to do more than anything
and when I came over to America
I made a couple of good films and some not so good films,
but I wanted to make a statement for myself on this one,
not for anyone, but for myself, to prove it to myself
that I had that in me.
I'm going to be 70 at the end of the year,
that I had that something so off the wall
and wacko that I could put it on screen some how
and that's why I did it.
I don't know if believe in anything,
I mean what deity, but I believe whatever that thing is
that we talk about for centuries,
I think it's just within us.
I mean remarkable things have happened in my life
by just wishing or asking for something,
for a bit of help here
and I don't believe, I'm an agnostic I guess.
I say, is there anyway you can help me, or whatever?
And there's something inside that will respond I believe,
I really believe that.
We have to make our lives because life is tough,
we have to believe in the power of life.
- Now, okay let's talk about this movie.
You're a priest, then you're trying to convince this guy
that doesn't really believe
and then all of a sudden you become possessed--
- That's right.
- By the devil.
You are a good devil.
(audience laughing)
You are.
(audience laughing)
I mean that in the kindest way.
- Yeah, thank you my dear.
(audience laughing)
- I mean really you play a bad guy so good,
when you turned, cause your character's not like that
for the first part of the movie.
- He's a good man.
- Then all of a sudden you're--
- Suddenly he becomes nuts.
- And then suddenly you become very--
- Yeah, very strange.
I don't know why they cast me in these parts?
I have no idea.
(audience laughing)
- [Ellen] No?
- But I mean I've no idea because I'm not like that at all.
(audience laughing)
- See look, just doing that is scary to me.
(audience laughing and applauding)
- I've got a technique, I don't know what it is,
I honestly don't know, seriously.
People say how do you do that?
I have no idea, I just do it.
(audience laughing)
- Like right now, just look at the camera
and make a scary, scary face.
- Oh,
(audience laughing)
- [Ellen] That's really creepy.
(audience laughing)
- You just deaden the eyes, that's all.
- Yeah, it is.
- Don't blink,
but I don't know, it's called acting I guess.
But I'm not like that inside, at all.
(audience laughing)
(all laughing)
(audience laughing)
Not at all.
Life is just terrific, I travel the world
and I'm still working
and working with some interesting people
and people think it's, you know, a dream.
But there are problems,
you know I pay a few people to help me and,
my wife has a friend called Juan Arias
and she called him Johnny on the spot,
my wife Stella, Johnny on the spot,
means Johnny on the spot,
except this guy is rarely on the spot,
sometimes you can't even find him,
he's supposed to be my personal assistant.
Can you believe that?
I pay him lots of money, it's really shocking,
but well that's life I guess.
Be quiet cause I'll introduce you,
I'll show you Johnny on the spot.
There you are.
That's him, that's Johnny on the spot,
paid a lot of money and he's useless,
useless.
My cat Niblo would be a better assistant,
but what can you do, you win them all,
my life's not perfect you know,
I don't know how to get rid of him,
but anyway, that's John,
first-class private travel, private hotel rooms,
all the women hug him on set,
they don't even know who I am,
but anyway that's life.
It's not all roses in the movie business.
Yeah,
that was good.
- Thank you guys so much for watching.
I made this video because Kendrick Bowman asked me to.
So if there's a famous entrepreneur
that you want me to profile next,
leave it down in the comments below
and I'll see what I can do.
I'd also love to know what did you learn
from Anthony Hopkins today
that you're going to apply in immediately to your life
or your business?
What was your favorite rule and why?
Leave it the comments, I'm going to join in the discussion.
Finally I want to give a quick shout out
to the LonelyBookaneer,
thank you so much for picking up a copy of my book,
Your One Word and taking that picture
and posting it to Instagram, those cookies look delicious
and I really, really appreciate your support.
So thank you guys again for watching, I believe in you.
I hope you continue to believe in yourself
and whatever your one word is, much love.
I'll see you soon.
- What has happened in some strange circuitous way
on this journey through life is that I've become
more at peace with myself.
I suppose we compensate for our lives,
for our lacks, if we choose to,
because I felt so lacking as a child
and in my adolescent years
and early adult years
I through anger, resentment or drive
or ambition or whatever,
I found my way, somehow.
I don't actually believe I did it totally on my own,
I believe in some power of life that is in us.
I'm a fatalist, I believe in destiny,
I believe if we relax and let go enough
and actually do believe that our lives
our none of our business
and open up then extraordinary things begin to happen.
I suppose you could be calling them spiritual surrender
or something of the sort, now when we try to,
I mean my agent many, many years ago, I had an agent once,
very nice chap but he said, "We've got to plan your career."
I mean that sent me running out the door,
you can't plan your life.
- No, I wouldn't care for that.
- You make certain choices and you go along
and you, you know, you chart the rapids and the rocks
and the shallows and the depths and so on and so forth,
but you can't really control your destiny,
you can't really control things,
you just have to let go and follow it.