Anthony Hopkins battles the devil as a priest who specializes in exorcisms in "The Rite," but in real life, he's battled a different demon: alcohol.
"I drank anything I could back in the old days," Hopkins, 73, tells CNN. "Whatever I couldn't eat — whatever I couldn't chew — I [drank]."
The Oscar winner, who admits he was once quite the partygoer, says one drink in particular almost destroyed him. "Tequila was my hooch," he says. "That nearly undid me, drove me nuts, so I stopped."
These days, Hopkins — whose supernatural thriller opens January 28 — sticks to drinks that are "very civilized," he says. " I just drink tonic water now or iced tea."
In "The Rite," Hopkins confronts spirits of a different kind, but says that off-screen he fears no evil. "There's the old karma," he explains. "If you do bad things in this life, they'll reproduce themselves."