Sir Anthony Hopkins has claimed he doesn’t know or care if his only child, Abigail, has made him a grandfather. The Oscar-winning actor, 80, has reportedly not spoken to his daughter for two decades.
Asked by Radio Times if he is a grandfather now, Hopkins replied: “I don’t have any idea. People break up. Families split and, you know, ‘get on with your life.’ People make choices. I don’t care one way or the other,” The Telegraph reported.
When told that sounded rather cold, he added, “Well, it is cold. Because life is cold. You don’t have to like your family. Children don’t like their fathers. You don’t have to love each other.”
The Silence of the Lambs actor, previously said he hoped to mend his relationship with his daughter Abigail, 48, whom he walked out on when she was a toddler. Abigail was the child of Hopkin’s first marriage, to Petronella Barker.
The pair briefly reconnected in the 1990s and she appeared in two of his films, Shadowlands and The Remains Of The Day. But in 2002 he revealed they were again estranged.
Abigail reportedly quit university and was treated for drug-addition, blaming her relationship with her dad. “I bottled up so much emotion in my childhood it caused my mind to go. I came very close to killing myself,” she told The Telegraph in 2006.
Despite their history, Abigail has been reluctant to criticise her father. “I love my father. He has been very supportive. I really wish him well,” she said in 2006.
Despite the drama in his personal life, Hopkins doesn’t seem to be letting it keep him down. He caught fans’ attention last month by sharing a peculiar Twitter video of himself dancing wildly around to upbeat music.
In the 30-second clip, the 80-year-old jerked around in erratic movements as he pulled several creepy Hannibal Lecter-like faces.
The actor, who is known for playing villainous characters, captioned the video: “This is what happens when you’re all work and no play… .”
https://twitter.com/AnthonyHopkins/status/988087131938742273
Despite his five-decade career, the Welsh actor doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon, having recently returned to the small screen as Dr. Robert Ford on the HBO sci-fi hit series Westworld.