Anthony Hopkins' 'First Desire' Comes Full Circle

Anthony Hopkins' latest role doesn't involve a camera—it involves a composer's desk. At 88, the two-time Oscar winner has released his debut single as a composer, an orchestral piece titled "Bracken Road," ahead of a full album, Life Is a Dream, due out Aug. 21 on Decca Classics, reports CNN. The label says the album gathers orchestral works that the actor has written over more than six decades. "Bracken Road" specifically is said to be "inspired by his childhood memories ... in South Wales and the streets, meadows, farmland, and mountains that surrounded his family home in the 1940s," per the Guardian.

Hopkins, who began playing piano at the age of 4 and composing as a teen, says music was his "first desire" and that some pieces on the album have been with him for years, per CNN. He wrote Bracken Road, for instance, in 1963. "I still find myself returning to them," he notes. Recorded at London's Alexandra Palace, the music is performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Grammy-winning conductor Gustavo Dudamel, who calls Hopkins' artistic voice one that "transcends any single medium."