Tony award
We Did OK, Kid Anthony Hopkins
(Simon & Schuster, £25)
HERE comes Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins CBE, striding through the gloaming of an extraordinary life, his backpack bulging with anecdotes from seven decades of consummate thespianism.
There is one about the time Hopkins took exception to co-star Mickey Rourke’s roughhousing during the filming of 1990 thriller Desperate Hours (“Do it again,” he apparently warned the former boxer, “and I’ll smash your face right into the back of your head!”)
There is another, from the set of 1995’s Nixon, in which we find actor Paul Sorvino informing Hopkins that he is playing the titular president “all wrong”, before offering to dispense tips to the Oscar-winner over dinner. The audacity! Upon learning of the incident from Hopkins, director Oliver Stone, with characteristic delicacy, declares Sorvino a “fucking fat ass”. We never learn what Sorvino’s advice entailed.