Shadowing Practice: The Day Anthony Hopkins Quit Drinking | The Interview - Learn English Speaking with Video
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How did you play Hannibal Lecter?
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Well, I played the opposite of what they promised.
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Oh, he's a monster.
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Good morning.
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You're not real FBI.
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How are you?
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In so many of Sir Anthony Hopkins' greatest performances, he's able to suggest captivating hidden depths to his characters.
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A census taker once tried to test me.
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I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.
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There's always a sense these characters are thinking and feeling things that, for whatever reason, they're keeping to themselves.
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Let me see it.
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But in his new autobiography, Hopkins himself is laying his life bare,
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revealing details about his tough childhood in Wales and his painful estrangement from his only child.
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Hopkins is 87 now, and he makes it clear in the book that he's grappling with life's bigger questions, the why of it all,
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and what it means, and how mystified he feels by the sheer luck and improbability of his unlikely life.
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Here's my conversation with Anthony Hopkins.
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Hello, David.
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Tony Hopkins.
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I was wondering, do I go Sir Anthony?
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No, no, no. Tony.
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Nice to meet you.
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Good to meet you.
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You know, I thought it might be interesting to start with a key epiphany that you write about in the book.
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You know, we all have our turning points in our lives.
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Would you have such a specific one and know exactly when it happened, a moment that sort of changed everything for you?
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Can you tell me about what happened on December 29th, 1975 at 11 o 'clock?
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Well, it's almost 50 years ago.
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I'm always slightly reluctant to talk about it because I don't want to sound preachy or like a goody two -shoes,
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but I was drunk, driving my car here in California in a blackout.
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No clue where I was going.
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And it was a moment when I realised that I could have killed somebody or myself, which I didn't care about.
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But I could have killed a family in a car, you know.
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And I realized that I was an alcoholic.
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And I came to my senses and I said to an ex -agent of mine at this party in Beverly Hills, I said, I need help.
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So I made the fatal phone call to an intergroup in L .A., 12 -step program.
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So we'll send somebody over to meet you.
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I said, no, I'll come to you.
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So we went to the Sinter Group office.
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So 11 o 'clock precisely, looked at my watch.
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And this is the spooky part.
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Some deep, powerful thought or voice spoke to me from inside and said, it's all over.
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Now you can start living.
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And it has all been for a purpose.
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So don't forget one moment of it.
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And it was just a voice from the blue from inside, deep inside me.
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But it was vocal, male, reasonable, like a radio voice.
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And it was a monotone, but it's all over.
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The craving to drink was taken from me or left.
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I don't know if any theories except, you know, divinity or that power that we all possess inside us that creates us from birth,
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life force, whatever it is.
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It's a consciousness, I believe.
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That's all I know.
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But my whole life has been like that.
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Should I give you another epiphany?
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I go back to 1955,
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Easter, and I was, my school report had arrived, the dreaded school report.
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I was 17 and I was dreading this day
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because my parents would read these terrible reports on my progress in school because I was a dummy.
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I was known as Dennis the Dunce Couldn't understand anything was going on Resentful,
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lonely and all that I remember my father opening the report
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The dreaded moment, about five o 'clock in the evening
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We were going to go off to see a film, I remember Beautiful spring day
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And he opened the report
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And it said, Anthony is way below the standard of this school
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which is a death knell really
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my father said I don't know what's going to happen to you I don't know
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but he was worried because
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and quite reasonably he'd spent a bit of money to give me an education
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and I wasn't capable of meeting
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that standard I couldn't understand anything my brain was sort of cut off but I remember taking a A slight move away,
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he said, one day I'll show you.
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My father looked at me, he said, well, I hope you do.
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At that moment, what I decided was to stop playing the game of being stupid and a dummy.
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We step into circles of energy which are negative, and we play a role, because it's easy to say, well, you know, I'm not,
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you know, it's not meant for me.
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That's, well, there's a truth in it, but at the same time, you have to say, wake up and live.
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Act as if it is impossible to fail.
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And that's what I did.
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You know, you grew up the son of a baker,
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working class in Wales, and I can't imagine growing up that you knew that many artists or actors.
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Was the idea of becoming an actor something that you or your family had ambivalence about?
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No. I think as a 17 -year -old boy who didn't know anything really,
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something sparked me and I got a scholarship to an acting school in South Wales.
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I'd never acted in my life, but I did an audition.
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and they gave me a scholarship.
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How?
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I don't know.
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And I remember, this is another thing, I remember going to see a play with the great
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Peter O'Toole at the Bristol Old Vic.
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He was playing
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Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger and onto the stage came this lightning bolt, Peter O'Toole, very dangerous actor.
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And I thought, God, if he stepped off the stage, he'd come and kill us all.
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and um 10 years later i was in the theater the national theater playing uh andre and
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laurence olivia's production of three sisters by chekhov knock on the door at the end of the evening should be
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that peter o'toole now that's weird
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and he said i want you to do a film test for me
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it's a film with katherine heppard called the lion in winter yeah it was your first film Yeah.
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So I showed up and did the test.
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He said, right, you've got it.
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You've got the part.
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And he'd had a few to drink and we had a few to drink of that day.
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Now that's beyond explanation to me.
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And when I look at that film, which I do occasionally, I think, how on earth did that happen?
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Why me?
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I don't know to this day why.
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And I am what I am and I do what I do because I love doing it.
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It's all in the game.
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Wonderful game called life.
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No sweat, no big deal.
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There are no big deals.
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So when you were a kid and you would hear your father or teachers say you were a dummy,
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I'm sure that the voice, your voice in your own head when you were younger also said, I'm a dummy.
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That's right.
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How did, and I think people are often in their lives, and certainly true for me,
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you know, we do battle with this voice in our head
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that tells us we can't do things or we're stupid or whatever it may be.
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How did you quiet that voice or learn to control it?
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Well, it's still there in me from childhood.
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But what you do, it now whispers.
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So what I say, shut up.
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So yeah, I just, yeah, thanks a lot
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We all have problems, we've all got limitations
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But I do believe that if you say
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Wake up and live
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Act as if it's an impossible thing
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We actually tap into a power that's in ourselves
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Which helps us to do, well, not everything
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But some things I discovered that I could compose music I discovered that I could write.
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I discovered through my lovely wife, Stella, that I could paint.
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And I remember she was an example because she changed my life.
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She found some drawings in some old scripts of mine just after we got married.
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She said, these drawings, you did these, I said, you've got to paint.
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I said, I can't paint.
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She said, of course you can.
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Just do it.
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So I then bought some canvases and acrylic paints and pens and inks.
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and I just do it.
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I have a question about that.
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But before, I'm really having a hard time with these headphones.
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All right.
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Sorry about that.
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We're back.
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That's okay.
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Much bigger headphones.
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They look good.
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All right.
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Yeah.
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Thank you.
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You know, often when I've talked with actors, they've suggested that something about acting and something about their affinity for acting
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or gift for acting has to do with the way that acting...
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fulfills something for them.
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Is there anything that you find acting fulfills for you?
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Some inner need?
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Well, a need would sound rather sad.
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I just enjoy it.
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I enjoy the scientific fun of it, of learning a script or learning all the lines.
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And I'm very good at that.
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I learn everything.
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There I'm studying because that reforms something in me.
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And I suppose on a deep psychological level, I'm trying to escape from what I was.
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I don't know.
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What is the thing you were trying to escape from?
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Well, that lonely kid, you know, and actually the vain surprise of saying, I did it.
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I survived my loneliness.
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I survived those bullies.
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Not that I blamed them.
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God bless them all.
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I mean, I'm not a victim.
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And, you know, if people choose to wallow in there, oh, well, okay, go ahead, but you're going to die.
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Because you can't do that.
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And that's why I drank, to nullify that discomfort of whatever it was in me,
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because it made me feel big.
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You know, booze is terrific, because it makes you instantly feel in a different space. And I enjoyed that.
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I didn't do it that long.
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I did it for 15 years.
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But I remember thinking, this is the life.
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And all actors in those days, Peter O'Toole, Richard Burton, all of them, you know, I remember those drinking sessions thinking, this is the life.
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We're rebels.
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We're outsiders.
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We can celebrate.
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And at the back of the mind is, and it'll kill you as well.
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and I remember thinking this is going to kill me the drinking yeah
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because I was doing it I was drinking like I was going out of fashion
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and those guys who worked with them all gone
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and they were very talented people wonderful but once you get into
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that schizophrenic stage when your personality becomes uh uh rabid
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and from the moment you're a jolly nice guy in the bar and and suddenly you turn viciously, say, you talk to me.
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That's what was happening to me.
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You write about how you were influenced by older actors like Laurence Olivier
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or Catherine Hepburn sort of helped you understand about film acting.
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But I was curious about whether any of the younger actors that you've worked with over the years,
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people like, you know, Nicole Kidman or Brad Pitt or Ryan Gosling, Have they taught you anything about acting or shown you anything about the craft?
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It's always been a pleasure to work with them.
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I mean, Brad and everyone you've just mentioned, nothing but praise for them.
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I was working with a young actor a few years ago, young Canadian actor who looked a bit like James Dean.
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I think he thought he was James Dean.
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But we were doing a scene together, and see you mumble.
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I said, can't hear a word you're saying.
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Huh?
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I can't hear you.
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Why are you mumbling?
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I didn't want to spoil his day.
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Yeah.
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But I said, if you do that, you see, we'll go to the pub next door, because you're supposed to tell us the story.
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Speak up. Be clear.
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Wandering on like a backstreet Marlon Brown is not going to help you at all in your career.
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I never heard him since.
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In reading the book and in reading sort of older interviews with you or older articles about you,
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I think to me there's a consistent sense that comes from you that acting shouldn't really be taken that seriously.
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Actors are entertainers.
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And I wonder, do you think acting has any greater claim on the truth?
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No. It's an entertainment.
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Maybe it's an educational way of entertaining.
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So it has no deeper importance.
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Not dismissing it, but I'm just saying, you know, if I start taking myself too seriously,
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I do think it's only a job it's only it's only acting so for me they're just pastiches little
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dabs of paint in one's life and not to be taken
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because at the moment
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when you get to a certain age in life you're going through you've got ambitions you've got great dreams
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and everything's fine and there on the distant hill is death
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and you think well now is the time to wake up and live and really enjoy it
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Do you feel like you achieved your dreams?
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Oh, yeah.
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I didn't know if they were dreams.
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They just happened to me because I can't take credit for them at all.
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I cannot.
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I mean, my life is a mystery to me.
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I'm not trying to sound ultra modest or humble,
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but I have to confess that I don't understand how it all happened.
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The miracle is I look at my hands, you know, My hands are an 87 -year -old man's hands.
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I'm slowing down.
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And, you know, my body's creaky, although I'm still strong.
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But the miracle of it is I'm still here.
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And that's not a mathematical formula.
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That's a miracle of life that's in us all, the heart that still beats.
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I look at my cat.
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I watch him sleeping out for the count.
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And I look at the miracle of his life a little cat.
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The miracle, the sheer miracle, to dismiss it is a sacrilege.
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What snaps you out of the miracle?
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My bad back.
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That'll do it.
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Yeah, but it's not even that bad.
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I get a bit of treatment, lower back, a bit of stiffness.
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And what I do now is slow down.
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I take everything very slowly because, Because, you know, I'm strong.
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My legs are strong.
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I work out.
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But what I do is I take it easy because one trip, one fall can kill you.
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Well, I mean, your age is, you know, it's a fact.
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It's undeniable.
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But it doesn't really seem from afar as if your productivity has slowed down.
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You work a lot.
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Yeah.
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Do you know what to do with yourself when you're not working?
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I play the piano, I read.
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But why do you work so much is my real question.
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They still offer me work.
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I don't know what's in their minds.
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They may think I'm 40.
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I don't know if they give me these jobs to do.
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And I think, okay.
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And I think, well, if they're game to employ me, I hope I just show up fit and well and ready.
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But what do you say yes to?
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I mean, do you just say yes to everything?
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Anything I can.
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Well, why not?
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No, I say yes.
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As long as it's a good script, not too far -fetched, as long as the writing is good and the director's amenable,
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yeah, why not?
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How often these days do you get a director who's not amenable?
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Well, they're all amenable now.
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Is that a change?
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Well, I used to, in the past, have a few problems with...
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Those days there were tyrant directors, tyrannical bullies, few of those, but when I used to confront them,
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I would confront them in no uncertain terms.
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I'd say things like, you talk to me like that and you'll wake up with a crowd around you.
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Whether I meant it or not, I don't know, but I wouldn't put up with it.
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I said, don't talk to me like that.
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I said no you shut up
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And either they would or they wouldn't I remember working with a director who was giving notes to a young woman
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Fine actress And he started shouting at her I said hold it
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You raise your voice one decibel To this lady And I'm going
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And you my dear should leave as well
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She said after she said thank you I said, how long has he been doing that?
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From the whole film, I said, you should have told me.
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I can't even remember the exact, I think he's gone now.
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But no, I defend people.
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Don't raise your voice.
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It's a film.
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It's a stupid film.
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That's all it is.
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It's not important.
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Doing take after take after take after take. Who cares?
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Do you feel that any of the films that you've made would, would you call them important?
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No. Not one.
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The Elephant Man.
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Give me The Elephant Man.
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Yeah, it was a good film.
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The Remains of the Day.
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Yeah, they were good, but...
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Silence of the Lambs.
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Ah.
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But the thing is, you know, about all that stuff, people ask me about Silence of the Lambs.
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How did you do that?
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I said, well, I am not Hannibal Lecter.
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I am not a butler.
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I'm not this and I'm not that, I'm just a mechanic.
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I show up, no matter what I'm like.
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Somebody says, how did you play the remains of the day?
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That butler, how did you play him?
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I said, well, I was very quiet, very still, and...
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Walked about quietly.
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That's it.
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Ah, how did you play Hannibal Lecter?
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Well, I played the opposite of what they promised.
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Oh, he's a monster.
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Good morning.
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You're not real FBI, are you?
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Gives me the heebie -jeebies.
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Don't do that.
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Because you play the opposite.
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And it's easy.
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This idea that essentially life is a game.
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There are no big deals.
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We don't need to take anything so seriously.
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Just got to do the best you can.
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that's sort of a, in a way, a recurring theme in your book.
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And I wonder if we believe that, you know, we shouldn't take anything too seriously.
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What should we take seriously?
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What does matter in life?
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Well, I don't mean to, you know, be irresponsibly indifferent to everything.
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There are difficulties there are monstrous difficulties in life
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and yeah you take notice of them but finally
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and I think now approaching 80 years of age
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I wake up in the morning thinking I'm still here how I don't know
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but whatever is keeping me I think thank you very much much obliged
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beyond my finite self there's not much I can do I had a gift
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when I was a boy I could suddenly learn
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lots of words of speeches from Shakespeare and poems and all that now at this age I
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look at those poems that I wrote down or they bring back clear memories of my childhood
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and I get very moved by it you know
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I just have to think of them I get tearful not through sadness
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but through the wonder of having been alive having lived those years and my clear memories of Wales
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my clear memories of my parents and their struggles and hardships after the war years, you know.
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They really struggled to make a living and to give me an education.
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I look back with tremendous gratitude and I get kind of weepy
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because I remember the glory of being a child, you know.
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I had a good childhood.
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I wasn't bright in school.
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I was hopeless and I was bullied a lot.
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I was slapped around.
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But I look back and I think, well, that's part of growing up.
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And in those days, teachers could knock you about.
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I remember being slapped across the head by a teacher several times because I didn't know something.
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And what I would do, revert to would be called in the army, dumb insolence.
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I wouldn't respond.
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I'd just withdraw into myself.
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And I'd stare at them blankly.
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Can you show me what that looked like?
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Because you referred to it a couple times in the book.
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So I remember the principal of the school slapping me on the head.
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He said, you're inadequate.
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Do you know what I mean?
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Yes.
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No. You're inadequate.
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You've got an empty brain.
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You're brainless.
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There's the look.
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And it drove them nuts.
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And they're all dead now.
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You won.
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I won.
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I don't know.
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I'd like to return to the material from the book for a second.
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And the specific material I'd like to focus on, I know it's sensitive for you.
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I know what you're going to talk about my domestic life.
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Yes.
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No, no. Even though it's in the book?
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No, it's done.
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Can I ask a general question that's not specifically about the material in the book?
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Well, it's about the, I'll stumble through this.
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Part of the reason that the material in the book about your relationship with your daughter, your strange relationship with your daughter,
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part of the reason why I found it so painful is that it resonated with me for personal reasons.
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Uh, I've seen my father, I think twice in 20 years, you know, I've spoken to him once in those 20 years.
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And I'm very curious about other people's experience of that kind of estrangement.
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In this instance, the estrangement is, uh, my choice, but I,
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I just wonder if you have thoughts about where reconciliation might lie between estranged parents and children.
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My wife, Stella,
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sent an invitation to come and see us.
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not a word of response.
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So I think, okay, fine.
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I wish her well, but I'm not going to waste blood over that.
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If you want to waste your life being in resentment 50 years later, 58 years later, fine, go ahead.
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It's not in my ken.
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See, I could carry resentment over the past, this and the other. But that's death.
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You're not living.
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You have to acknowledge one thing, that we are imperfect.
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We're not saints.
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We're all sinners and saints or whatever we are.
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We do the best we can.
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Life is painful.
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Sometimes people get hurt.
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Sometimes we get hurt.
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But you can't live like that.
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You have to say, get over it.
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And if you can't get over it, fine.
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Good luck to you.
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But I have no judgment.
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But I did what I could. So that's it.
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That's all I want to say.
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Do you hope your daughter reads the book?
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I'm not going to answer that, no. I don't care.
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I'll move on.
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Please, I want you to.
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Because I don't want to hurt her.
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I understand.
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I don't want to make any, no. 20 years, the offer was made, but fine.
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Onwards.
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Towards the end of the book, you talk about a couple labels that might apply to you, and one of which is Asperger's.
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I think you say in there that your wife, Stella, sort of suspects that you may have Asperger's.
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Have you ever been diagnosed?
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No. No. I'm told I have all the symptoms.
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I don't know what any of it means.
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If I have it, then I'm happy.
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I don't know.
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The other label, it's right in the same paragraph.
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You know, you say another label that might apply is the label cold fish.
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And you say that you prefer the cold fish label to the Asperger's label.
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Why is that?
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Why does that feel more fitting or more comfortable?
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Well, it's only a turn of phrase, a cold fish.
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I'm not a cold fish.
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I have lots of feelings bundled up with them.
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They're deep inside me when I read something from the past I get tearful.
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It's not, I think what it is, I don't get attached to sentimentality.
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In this business, with actors who I admire and I've worked with, I form no attachment.
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I respect them, but I form...
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Well, the coalfish is I am remote.
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I am a loner, and I've never been able to shake that.
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I have acquaintances, friends, if you want to call it that.
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I don't have any close friends.
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I'm a little distant.
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a little suspicious I suppose I'm comfortable just chuntering along through my slightly isolated life but I'm not a recluse,
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I don't live in a tower I live in a house here I'm travelling a lot I have my immediate family,
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my niece Tara and my lovely wife
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Stella and they boss me about, they tell me what to do.
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And I'm happy with that.
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The sort of personal remoteness you described, I was wondering if that, how that might actually benefit your performances sometimes.
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Because when I think of some of your, some of my favorite performances that you've given, I'm thinking of things like
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Remains of the Day or 84 Charing Cross Road, The Father, even on some level,
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Silence of the Lambs or Shadowlands has this too.
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I feel like there is sort of an emotional remoteness to some of those characters.
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And I wonder if that's something that is just sort of like a fingerprint maybe
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or a signature of a good Anthony Hopkins performance or is that an intentional sort of performing strategy?
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I think it's partially intentional because many years ago, there were two teachers at the Royal Academy.
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They were brief visitors there.
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They did not appreciate the academy, the academics, but they were teachers of the Stanislavski system, let's say.
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And I remember this one teacher called Jad Malmgren.
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And he was a dance teacher.
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He's Swedish.
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And I used to go to these painful classes of movement.
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I hated them.
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And I'm built like a Welsh rugby scrum, you know, a bit beefy.
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And Jad said, Anthony, he said, you have too much some extroverted motoric energy, and you will become insensitive.
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I didn't know what he was talking about, but then I gathered instinctively to develop the other side, which was to pull back,
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be in the darkness, be in the shade, called remote.
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And it's the remote that paid off for me
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because I had to change my whole psychology to not be that rambunctious rugby player coming on the stage, bumping into people, being ferocious.
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Gradually I learned, no, no, pull back, pull back.
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There's one acting note that it was Gloria Graham, the great movie star.
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She was doing a film with Bogart called In a Lonely Place.
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And Bogart said to her, stay in the shade.
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Don't go to the camera.
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Let it come to you.
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He saw something in her because she was a little crazy, you know.
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He said, let it come to you.
478
And I think he had that quality as well.
479
And that's the more magnetic side.
480
It compels you to watch.
481
Well, because you're not doing anything.
482
When Chilton says to Clarice Starling, what's he like?
483
You mean Hannibal the cannibal?
484
And Chilton, the head of the asylum, says, oh, he's a monster.
485
and she goes down the passageway to the cell, maybe expecting to see a blubbering lunatic.
486
And Jonathan Demme said to me, he said, how do you want to be seen by Clarice?
487
Do you want to be lying on the bunk or do you want to be reading?
488
I said, no, I want to be standing.
489
Why?
490
I said, I can smell her coming down the corridor.
491
When she sees me, there's this still perfectly civil gentleman.
492
Good morning.
493
You're not real FBI.
494
I hear you.
495
All the way to the FBI.
496
That's the way to build a portrait.
497
And it's all remote because Lecter is the remote spellbinding character.
498
And if you have remoteness as the centrifugal force in you, that's the driving force that pulls you in.
499
So there's another epiphany that I'd like to go back to, if you don't mind.
500
This is another one you describe in the book.
501
You were driving in Los Angeles in, I think, the late 70s.
502
And you felt a pull to go over to a Catholic church.
503
And you went inside and you told a young priest there that you had found God.
504
Now, I get the sense that you're not going to church every Sunday or sort of praying in a conventional way.
505
So what is God to you?
506
Well, it's a touchy subject, isn't it?
507
Because I'm religion and, you know.
508
But what happened that morning when that voice said, it's over.
509
Now you can start living and it's all been for a purpose.
510
So don't forget one moment of it.
511
I knew that was a power way beyond my understanding
512
Not up there in the clouds
513
But here, in here
514
So I chose to call it at that moment God I didn't know what else to call it
515
Short word God, easy to spell
516
And I recently wrote a piece of music
517
Which was conducted in Riyadh Goodbye, piano and orchestra
518
And at the end, it came to me as I was writing it, as I was composing it, that that's it.
519
We come full circle.
520
We dip down to that's all, folks.
521
And that it was all a dream anyway.
522
Everything is a dream.
523
And it's goodbye before death takes us.
524
If you're getting nearer to the big goodbye,
525
do you take any pride or draw any meaning or take any solace from what you leave behind,
526
both as a person and as an artist?
527
Oh, you mean a heritage?
528
A legacy.
529
A legacy.
530
I'd never think about it.
531
I never think about it.
532
When they cover the earth over you.
533
That's it.
534
We move on.
535
I remember going to...
536
I was asked by the widow of Lawrence Olivier,
537
Joan Claret, if I would read the last lines of King Lear at the casket in this little church in Sussex.
538
I was astounded that I was asked to do it.
539
There was Olivia's Casket, full of the flowers and wreaths and collections of flowers from Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale.
540
and after that we got into our cars
541
and went to um the crematorium
542
and i was sitting next to maggie smith the great actress maggie smith i didn't know her
543
that well but we were sitting next to each other
544
and we both worked with olivia and there was the casket and finally there's a curtain
545
and you could hear the rollers taking them into the crematorium, into the flames.
546
Maggie Smith said, what a final curtain.
547
And you think, God Almighty, what is it all about?
548
The wonder of all that energy that had gone into his life or anyone's life, not just a celebrity, but anyone's life,
549
the energy that goes into survival.
550
seeing my own father dying, you know, going to the hospital the night he died, and standing at the foot of his bed,
551
my mother smoothing his hair.
552
I felt his feet at the foot of the bed.
553
They were dead cold.
554
He'd gone.
555
And as I stood there,
556
that silent night in that empty sounding hospital in South Wales,
557
a voice again came to me, you're not so hot either.
558
This is what will happen to you.
559
And it's a great wake -up call when you know that.
560
It's a fairly brusque voice.
561
You're not so hot.
562
But what it is, it's an awakening, several awakenings and epiphanies.
563
We think, yeah, that's right.
564
But Sir Anthony, Anthony, I realize I'm dancing around a question that I would like your answer to.
565
Do you think your life has had meaning?
566
The only meaning I can put to it is that everything I sought and yearned for found me.
567
I didn't find it.
568
It came to me.
569
On the interview, we try to talk to our guest twice.
570
So I spoke with Anthony Hopkins a few days later, this time without video.
571
Hi, Tony.
572
Hello, is that David?
573
It is David.
574
How are you?
575
Good.
576
Good.
577
So I, of course, saw that at the end of your book, there's an appendix that includes a handful of poems,
578
which is something I'd never seen done in an autobiography before.
579
Can you tell me why you decided to include those poems?
580
When I was a kid, I learned a lot of poems, a lot of words and I was very moved by them from,
581
I think, from about the age of 11.
582
There was one occasion, I was in school, I was sitting in the back of the classroom where I always sat,
583
sullenly, not wanting to be involved in anything.
584
And the English teacher called me and said, I want to come up here to the front of the class.
585
I thought, oh, he said, I want you to read this poem.
586
He seemed to have an instinct about me that I knew something.
587
And he handed me a poem, which was Westwind by John Macefield.
588
He said, read that.
589
He said, out loud.
590
I read it, and I was strangely moved by it.
591
And at the end, he said, that's it.
592
OK, good.
593
Thank you.
594
That's very good.
595
So it was my first good review, I think.
596
And I think that's what it is.
597
It's an expression of life.
598
I read poems and I get kind of, yeah, I get moved by them.
599
And I don't know why.
600
I think it's to do with my age and how poetry digs really deep inside us, beyond our understanding.
601
Would you be willing to read
602
The West Wind by John Macefield?
603
That is one of the poems that you included in the appendix.
604
Let me just find them.
605
Can I, have I got a minute?
606
Yep.
607
Hold on a second.
608
Ah, wow, yes.
609
It's a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds' cries.
610
I never hear the west wind, but tears are in my eyes.
611
For it comes from the westlands, the old brown hills, and aprils in the west wind, and daffodils.
612
It's a fine land, the west land, for hearts as tired as mine.
613
Apple orchards blossom there, the air's like wine.
614
There is cool green grass there, where men may lie at rest, And the thrushes are in song there, fluting in the nest.
615
Will you not come home, brother?
616
You have been long away.
617
It's April and blossom time, and white is the May, And bright is the sun, brother, and warm is the rain.
618
Will you not come home, brother, home to us again?
619
The young corn is green, brother, where the rabbits run, its blue sky and white clouds, and warm rain and sun.
620
Its song to a man's soul, brother, fire to man's brain, to hear the wild bees and see the merry spring again.
621
Larks are singing in the west, brother, above the green wheat.
622
So will you not come home, brother, and rest your tired feet?
623
I've a balm for bruised hearts, brother Sleep for aching eyes
624
Says the warm wind, the west wind
625
Full of birds' cries
626
It's the white road westward is the road I must tread
627
To the green grass, the cool grass
628
The rest for heart and head
629
To the violence and the warm hearts
630
And the thrush's song
631
In the fine land, the west land the land where I belong.
632
I'd like to end on that eloquent grace note.
633
Sir Anthony Hopkins, thank you very much.
634
Thank you.
635
I'm Lulu Garcia Navarro.
636
And I'm David Marchese.
637
And we're the hosts of The Interview, an audio and video podcast from The New York Times.
638
Every week we interview fascinating and influential people from all walks of life.
639
Subscribe to our YouTube channel so you'll never miss an episode you
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “The Day Anthony Hopkins Quit Drinking”. This video has 639 sentences and 6021 words to shadow. The speech runs for 42:12. The speaker talks at a steady 143 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| poem noun | /ˈpoʊ.əm/ | A literary piece written in verse. |
| miracle noun | /ˈmɪɹ.ə.kəl/ | An event that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin. |
| label noun | /ˈleɪ.bəl/ | A small ticket or sign giving information about something to which it is attached or intended to be attached. |
| remote adjective | /ɹəˈməʊt̞/ | At a distance; disconnected. |
| painful adjective | /ˈpeɪn.fl̩/ | Causing pain or distress, either physical or mental. |
| dummy noun | /ˈdʌmi/ | A stupid person. |
| clock noun | /klɑk/ | A chronometer, an instrument that measures time, particularly the time of day. |
| grass noun | /ɡɹɑːs/ | Any plant of the family Poaceae, characterized by leaves that arise from nodes in the stem and leaf bases that wrap around the stem, especially those grown as… |
| goodbye | /ɡʊdˈbaɪ/ | Farewell; a formula used to another person or persons when the speaker, writer, or person addressed is departing. |
| lonely adjective | /ˈloʊnli/ | Unhappy due to feeling isolated from contact with other people. |
| cloud noun | /ˈklaʊ̯d/ | A visible mass of water droplets suspended in the air. |
| actress noun | /ˈæk.tɹɪs/ | A female who performs on the stage or in films. |
| curious adjective | /ˈkjʊɹ.i.əs/ | Tending to ask questions, or to want to explore or investigate; inquisitive; (with a negative connotation) nosy, prying. |
| saint noun | /seɪnt/ | A deceased person whom a church or another religious group has officially recognised as especially holy or godly; one eminent for piety and virtue. |
| rugby noun | /ˈɹʌɡbi/ | A form of football in which players can hold or kick an ovoid ball; rugby football. The ball cannot be handled forwards and points are scored by touching the… |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| wake up verb | /ˌweɪk ˈʌp/ | To stop sleeping; to awake. |
| grow up verb | To mature and become an adult. | |
| pull back verb | To retreat. | |
| show up verb | To appear, arrive, or attend, especially suddenly or erratically. | |
| slow down verb | To decelerate. | |
| get over verb | To overcome. | |
| go ahead verb | /ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/ | To proceed with; to begin. |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Should I give you another epiphany?
- Do you feel like you achieved your dreams?
- What snaps you out of the miracle?
- Do you know what to do with yourself when you're not working?
- I mean, do you just say yes to everything?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | if he stepped off the stage, he'd come · if you do that, you see, we'll go |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has been · I've talked · you've worked |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was drunk · was taken · was known |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | energy which are · guys who worked · side, which was |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 175 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: theater /ˈθi(ə)tɚ/, gather /ˈɡæðɚ/, withdraw /wɪðˈdɹɔ/, mathematical /ˌmæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪ.kəl/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shade /ʃeɪd/, scholarship /ˈskɑːləɹʃɪp/, sheer /ʃɪɚ/, intentional /ɪnˈtɛnʃənəl/, explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: difficulty /ˈdɪfɪkəlti/, inadequate /ɪnˈædəkwɪt/, intentional /ɪnˈtɛnʃənəl/, autobiography /ˌɔː.tə.baɪˈɒɡ.ɹə.fi/, explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like poem, miracle, label.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.