Actor Anthony Hopkins Finds His Truest Voice as a Composer on New Classical Album for Decca, ‘Life Is a Dream’: ‘I Write Out of Sheer Joy of Being Alive’
Categoria: Musica
Noted conductor Gustavo Dudamel leads the Philharmonica Orchestra on Hopkins' 12 compositions.
Por Billboard | 21/08/2026
Life could have gone very differently for Sir Anthony Hopkins . To hear one of the world’s greatest actors tell it, he would have chosen an alternative career path if he’d had the discipline to pursue his first love, music. “I didn’t have the skill as a musician or the patience with theory,” he says. “So, I have no technical knowledge.” By all measure, he’s done just fine with his second choice, winning two Academy Awards and bringing unforgettable characters like The Silence of the Lambs’ charismatic serial killer Hannibal Lecter and The Remains of the Day’ s repressed head butler James Stevens to the screen. And in some cases, he’s managed to combine his two passions. Hopkins’ album of original classical compositions , Life Is a Dream , comes out Friday (Aug. 21) on Decca, offering the fullest public statement yet of the private musical life he has pursued alongside his screen career. The album was recorded in London with outgoing Los Angeles Philharmonic conductor Gustavo Dudamel leading the Philharmonia Orchestra. “What drew me in was its authenticity,” Dudamel says via email of Hopkins’ music. “Anthony writes without pretense and he follows his own artistic instinct. When I spent time with his scores, I wasn’t thinking about the fact that they were written by one of the world’s great actors. I was simply responding to the music itself. It has warmth, imagination, and a very personal voice, and I felt it deserved to be heard.” Life Is a Dream’s 12 pieces are largely nostalgic looks back at Hopkins’ life, from the dreamy, lush “Margam,” about where he grew up in Wales; to the boisterous, exhilarating “Fanfare and March” and the haunting, deeply romantic “Farewell My Love,” dedicated to his wife of 23 years, Stella. In many ways, the pieces serve as a musical companion to his 2025 autobiography, We Did OK, Kid . “They’re all part of a great theme: that we’re here, but, finally, we have to say goodbye. That’s the poignancy and the beauty of life,” Hopkins says. The album is also deeply influenced by his father, a baker, whom Hopkins watched struggle during the difficult post-World War II years as Europe rebuilt: “I look back at him with a kind of strange, morbid nostalgia, thinking, ‘That was it. That’s the bane of life. You get up and you get on with it.’ “Music for me is based on pain,” he continues. “Life is painful, and my music reflects that…That’s the beauty and eloquence of life, because no one in this world knows what happens once we close our eyes and die.” Sitting in the living room of the Grace Kelly suite at Los Angeles’ Hotel Bel-Air in a bright lime pullover, tan jacket and khakis, Hopkins, 88, sips on tea and declines the plate of cookies on the table. “I became fastidious [about eating] during the pandemic,” he says. He discusses a lifetime of making music in a voice still beautifully mellifluous, but softer than it once was. He started playing piano when he was 7, just after World War II ended, on a wooden-fram