In February 1958, Hopkins began compulsory military service. Despite poor clerical skills, he was assigned to typing in the regimental office. In November 1959, Captain Michael Witte confronted him about fighting with Gallagher, a soldier from the Black Watch, and cancelled his weekend passes. Hopkins recalls an Amesbury pub incident in which Gallagher’s taunts and physical aggression triggered memories of a school bully, prompting Hopkins to head-butt him and break his nose. Confined to barracks, he took a philosophy correspondence course and read George Berkeley, whose ideas about perception resonated with his sense of unreality.

After his discharge in February 1960, Hopkins briefly worked at a steel company but was told to leave. He traveled to Bristol to inquire about acting work at the Old Vic. A man there advised him to write to theater directors and suggested Manchester’s Library Theatre. David Scase, the company’s director, invited him to audition in London. Hopkins performed a soliloquy from Monna Vanna, impressing Scase with his unusual choice. He was hired as an assistant stage manager with occasional walk-on parts and moved to Manchester in September, lodging with Mrs. Hale.

At the Library Theatre, stage director John Franklyn-Robbins lectured on protocol. Hopkins was cast in small roles but proved unsafe in fight scenes, nearly injuring other actors. After Christmas, Scase fired him for lacking technique but advised him to attend a proper drama school. Hopkins left without his pay and impulsively boarded a train to Nottingham. He recalls Stan, a retired corrections officer he met while rehearsing a play, who witnessed a hanging and told him to use mortality as inspiration—advice that Hopkins connected to a revelation at age four, when a childhood acquaintance, Brian Moore, told him that everyone dies.

Arriving in Nottingham at midnight, Hopkins slept on a station bench. In the morning, he bathed at a public washhouse and visited the Nottingham Playhouse, where he recognized actor Robert Lang from the Arts Council tour of 1957. At a Wimpy restaurant, Lang and his colleagues, including Morgan Sheppard, questioned Hopkins about his vague plans. A stage manager named Beth followed him outside and, learning that he needed work, directed him to Roy Battersby at the Playhouse, where an assistant stage manager (ASM) position was available for The Winslow Boy. Battersby hired him, and fellow ASM Roy Marsden helped him find lodging. Hopkins never saw Beth again.

During the production, Marsden told Hopkins that he lacked discipline and suggested that he apply to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), even obtaining an application for him. After his job ended, Hopkins returned to Wales and applied to RADA. In mid-July, he auditioned at the Vanbrugh Theatre, performing soliloquies from Monna Vanna and Othello. When another actor confidently performed Henry V, Hopkins felt intimidated. During his Iago audition, however, he experienced a breakthrough, choosing quiet, logical stillness over melodrama. Silence followed his performance, and he started to leave. Principal John Fernald and teacher Judith Gick called him back, praising his unique and frightening interpretation.

Afterward, Hopkins met fellow auditionees Geoffrey Hutchings and Alex Henry at a pub. They drank heavily and then watched a film. That night, Hopkins slept on a park bench, the negative voice in his head finally quiet.

In September, before leaving for London, Hopkins shared a drink with his dying maternal grandfather, Yeats. Irritated and impatient, he repeatedly refused his grandfather’s invitation to come home for haddock. They parted with a handshake, and his grandfather gave him a 10-shilling note. This was the last time Hopkins saw him; his grandfather died of lung cancer weeks later. Hopkins shut down his grief, unable to tolerate such pain.

Starting at RADA in September 1961, he developed his learning method: reading scripts hundreds of times through intense repetition, and marking pages until he knew them cold. He lodged with Marjory and Frank Williams, whose father, Albert, recounted his World War I experience in the Battle of the Marne, where he encountered a German soldier in a crater who gave him a family photo before vanishing. Hopkins attended RADA from 1961 to 1963 alongside John Hurt, Ian McShane, David Warner, and Simon Ward, but his drinking and withdrawal kept him isolated. The swinging sixties entirely passed him by, as he preferred to wander the streets of London or visit flower shop owner Georgie Dennis, who told stories about Richard Burton. His first serious relationship ended when his girlfriend broke up with him after Christmas 1962.

Hopkins absorbed techniques from teachers Yat Malmgren and Christopher Fettes, learning psychological gesture and stillness. Albert’s war stories triggered Hopkins’s own World War II memories: American officers Cooney and Durr had visited his home in 1944, bringing marbles and friendship before departing for combat. Soldier Sam Arrut later informed the family that Cooney and Durr’s unit was wiped out. Other wartime memories included building an Anderson shelter, listening to radio broadcasts, and his father defending Italian shopkeepers from vandals.

As Hopkins prepared to leave RADA in 1963, teacher Christopher Fettes advised him to keep learning through experience and accept that perfection was impossible. Hopkins auditioned for the Phoenix Theatre in Leicester and was hired for its inaugural production of The Matchmaker. Director Clive Perry became hostile, calling him a clodhopper. Fellow actor David Swift advised ignoring Perry, explaining that directors often singled out scapegoats.

When Perry yelled at him again during rehearsal, Hopkins calmly told the director to shut his mouth and walked out. Perry followed him to the lobby, where they argued in front of customers and front-of-house manager Leslie Twelvetrees. Swift and Anthony Morton intervened, with Morton praising Hopkins and invoking a mock-Latin motto meaning not to let others grind you down. Rehearsals proceeded peacefully afterward.

Following the successful opening night, Hopkins skipped the party and got drunk. The next morning, he discovered that he had been cast as Andrew Undershaft in Major Barbara—a major promotion despite the character being a 60-year-old man. He was 25. Connecting with the character by seeing aspects of his father and grandfather in the role, Hopkins used his repetition method to memorize the entire play before rehearsals began.

At the first read-through on November 1, he performed his role entirely from memory, surprising the cast, including Hilary Hardiman, Gillian Edison, Richard Kay, and Mary Griffith. Swift called him a “cunning Welsh fox” (130) and reported that Perry was delighted. In the pub afterward, Hopkins reflected on a line from Hamlet about readiness, experiencing a mental shift: He decided to abandon self-defeat, accept both failure and success as inevitable, and simply get on with life.