Anthony Hopkins ‘lost everything’ in LA wildfires

Anthony Hopkins “lost everything” in the California wildfires.

The Silence of The Lambs star was among the most famous faces caught up in the disaster in January when his home in the Pacific Palisades burned to the ground.

But he remains thankful he and his wife, Stella, were away at the time and their beloved pet cats were not caught up in the disaster.

“It was a bit of a calamity. We’re thankful that no one was hurt, and we got our cats and our little family into the clear,” he told The Guardian.

“We lost everything, but you think: ‘Oh well, at least we are alive’. I feel sorry for the thousands of people who have been really affected. People who were way past retirement age, and had worked hard over the years and now … nothing.”

The Oscar-winning film star was born in Wales but has lived in the US for decades, and insists he has no regrets about making his home in California despite the dangers.

He told the publication: “(People said) ‘Are you selling out?’ I said: ‘No, I just like the climate and to get a suntan’. But I like Los Angeles. I’ve had a great life here.”

The 87-year-old actor and his wife are renting a property in nearby Brentwood and they are selling off the site of their former home at a loss.

Hopkins splashed out $A10.2 million for one house in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles, in 2018 and then bought the neighbouring property for $US6 million the following year to combine them into one huge estate, but he recently put the plots up for sale for a total of $US6.4 million.

The Silence of the Lambs star lost his estate in the blaze but remained philosophical at the time.

He wrote on social media: “As we all struggle to heal from the devastation of these fires, it’s important we remember that the only thing we take with us is the love we give.”

Hopkins has finally turned his gaze inwards – and invited us all to look along with him. His memoir, We Did OK, Kid, published on November 4, 2025, by Summit Books, is being heralded as “raw and passionate”.

Hopkins opens his story in Wales, the son of a baker living in Port Talbot, a boy with no obvious future. “I wonder how a boy from Wales, the son of a baker, got here. My entire life is a great mystery,” he says. He reveals that the book’s title comes from a treasured childhood photo – “We did OK, kid,” he tells his younger self.

But the journey did not glide smoothly. The memoir walks us through Hopkins’ early hardships: struggling at school, fighting to find his voice in a world that underestimated him, and then climbing steadily into theatre, under the mentorship of legends like Laurence Olivier and Richard Burton.

As he matured, the revelations become darker. Hopkins does not shy away from his alcoholism and the personal wreckage it caused –  “His addiction cost him his first marriage, his relationship with his only child and almost his life,” The memoir also addresses the estranged relationship with his daughter Abigail, a matter which he calls “the saddest fact of my life and my greatest regret.”

And yet, amid those collisions with one’s self, comes renewal. Hopkins recounts the moment he chose sobriety nearly fifty years ago and reflects on mortality, on isolation, on the fear of connection — themes he describes as that which his father dubbed “The Big Secret.”