Anthony Hopkins

I get tearful, not through sadness, but through the wonder of having been alive, having lived those years and my clear memories of Wales, my clear memories of my parents, their struggles and hardships after the war years.

They really struggled to make a living and to give me an education.

I look back with tremendous gratitude and I get kind of weepy because I remember the glory of being a child.

I had a good childhood.

I wasn't bright in school.

I was hopeless.

And I was bullied a lot.

I was slapped around.

But I look back and I think, well, that's part of growing up.

And I wasn't bright.

And in those days, teachers could knock you about.

I remember being slapped across the head by a teacher several times.

because I didn't know something.

And what I would do, Virta would be called in the army, dumb insolence.

I wouldn't respond.

I'd just withdraw into myself, and I'd stare at them blankly, and it drove them nuts.

And they're all dead now.

Well, it's still there in me from childhood.

But what you do, it now whispers.

So when I say, shut up, I just, yeah, thanks a lot.