There's no truth in acting, it's all a trick, because you go on stage in front of sets, you're on film - it's all a trick. I'm making it sound very - I really am demystifying it, but what I try to do, what I do, and I hope effectively, is to create a reality as if it is happening now, that you're fishing for words out of the air.

Oliver Stone is a great director and I've seen many films over the years, but I try to create stuff out of my own imagination. I want to break all the rules and mess about with it and make a different movie just for the fun of it.

If I spent all my time criticising myself, I wouldn't be able to function. There are actors who theorise till the cows come home. I haven't the patience for them. It's maybe shallow, but that's why I'll never be part of the acting set.

When people call me Sir Anthony I just think oh, that's a bit odd. But I'm not cynical about it. Um, I just feel more comfortable being called Tony or Mr. Hopkins, whatever name I'm called.

Years ago I met Richard Burton in Port Talbot, my home town, and afterwards he passed in his car with his wife, and I thought, 'I want to get out and become like him'. Not because of Wales, because I love Wales, but because I was so limited as a child at school and so bereft and lonely, and I thought becoming an actor would do that.

I'm very much a loner. I don't like long relationships with people and I always keep people at a distance.

Why love, if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore: only the life I have lived... The pain now is part of the happiness then.