Two-time Oscar winner Anthony Hopkins has released his first single as a composer at age 88, launching a new chapter built on decades of music he wrote largely in private. The track, "Bracken Road," arrived Friday via Decca Classics ahead of his debut album, Life Is a Dream, out August 21, a collection of orchestral works Hopkins composed over more than six decades.
Hopkins began playing piano at age 4 and started composing for local theater productions as a teenager in the 1950s. "Music was my first desire, my first wish," he said in a statement announcing the project, adding that some of the pieces have lived with him for decades. "Bracken Road" was written in 1963, when Hopkins was a young actor improvising on an upright piano before rehearsals at the Liverpool Playhouse, drawing on memories of his childhood home in Margam, South Wales. The album was recorded with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Grammy-winning conductor Gustavo Dudamel.
Hopkins shared the news himself on Instagram, thanking his wife Stella and a circle of close friends, including actor Bradley Cooper, for their support. "My whole Life is a Dream," he wrote. "Signing with Decca Records is the honour of a lifetime." The post's official album artwork, photographed by Charlie Gray, shows Hopkins in soft, warm light beside the names of his collaborators, Dudamel and the Philharmonia Orchestra.
Hopkins has also spoken openly in recent months about the role faith has played in his life, describing an inner voice that ended his decades-long struggle with alcoholism on December 29, 1975. He's said the experience convinced him of something far beyond his own understanding - a power he simply chose to call God. He marked 50 years of sobriety this past December.
Best known for his Oscar-winning roles in The Silence of the Lambs and The Father, Hopkins continued composing quietly throughout his acting career. Life Is a Dream marks his first formal step into music as a public body of work.
