Having won Best Actor at 2021 Academy Awards, 'The Father' star admits that his wife, who worries about his health, once asked him if he wants to keep acting until he drops dead.

• May 31, 2021

AceShowbiz - Sir Anthony Hopkins wants to keep acting until he can't physically go on. The 83-year-old star, who picked up this year's Best Actor Oscar for his role in "The Father", insists he has no plans to retire.

"I enjoy working," he tells Saga magazine. "I enjoy getting out of the house and doing something different. I enjoy the novelty of it... I love the activity."

"My wife, Stella, worries about my health and once said, 'Do you want to keep going until you drop dead?' I replied, 'I guess so, unless my health gives out first'. And she said, 'Well, that's good, if it's really what you want to do'. And it is. Acting is my passion."

But he admits his role in "The Father", in which he played a character suffering with progressing dementia, took its toll on him once the cameras stopped rolling.

"What was difficult about 'The Father' was that by playing an older man, I actually started to feel older. My back would ache and my legs would ache. The theory that I have - and it may be a cockamamie theory - is that the brain is not as sharp as we think it is, so if I started to tell it I'm an old man with dementia, it will believe me."

"After I stopped playing the part, I started feeling better and better, and thought, 'Oh, good, I'm coming back'."

Meanwhile, Hopkins keeps himself mentally fit as much as possible, explaining, "I read a lot, I paint, and I memorise things, so I can keep that facility going. I also play the piano five days a week - [composers] Rachmaninoff and Brahms - not because I want to play in Carnegie Hall, far from it, but because it keeps the brain active."