NEW YORK • Anthony Hopkins admitted that he could not be trusted in the past when he was addicted to drinking.

The Oscar-winning star of films, including The Silence Of The Lambs (1991) and The Elephant Man (1980), came clean before an audience of students in Los Angeles.

Anthony, 80, traced his drinking to his early career on stage.

"Because that's what you do in theatre, you drink. But I was very difficult to work with as well because I was usually hung over." He added that he had been "disgusted" and "busted" while he was drinking.

But the actor, who recently starred in HBO drama Westworld and will appear in Netflix's The Pope, in which he portrays Pope Benedict, found the resolve to sober up after meeting a woman from Alcoholics Anonymous in 1975.

She told him to place his faith over a successful U-turn to sobriety in God, a move which bore fruit.

According to The Telegraph, he told 500 students at the University of California, Los Angeles that he developed a thirst for acting "because he had nothing better to do".

He was "not at all bright" in school and was often bullied. There is nothing to lose, he told the audience members, urging them to "say yes to everything. Say yes and take the risk".

"We can talk ourselves into death or we can talk ourselves into the best life we've ever lived," he added.