In his latest role, King Lear, he portrays a man who has a famously fraught relationship with his daughters.

And sadly, the same is true in real life for veteran actor Sir Anthony Hopkins. The 80-year-old has not spoken to daughter Abigail – his only child – for two decades.

Such is their estrangement that he does not even know if he is a grandfather.

Sir Anthony said he ‘didn’t care’ about the family split, admitting that he was ‘cold’ about his 48-year-old daughter, who uses the name Abigail Harrison.

Asked if Miss Harrison – an actress and theatre director who changed her surname so that she could have a ‘career on her own terms’ – had children, Sir Anthony said: ‘I don’t have any idea. People break up. Families split and, you know, “get on with your life”. People make choices. I don’t care one way or the other. It is cold. Because life is cold.’

Veteran actor Sir Anthony Hopkins, 80, has not spoken to daughter Abigail – his only child – for two decades (pictured together at a film premiere in 1991)

The pair briefly reconnected in the 1990s and she appeared in two of his films, Shadowlands and The Remains Of The Day. However, they quickly became estranged again

Miss Harrison was brought up by her mother, Sir Anthony’s first wife Petronella Barker, after the couple divorced when she was four.

The pair briefly reconnected in the 1990s and she appeared in two of his films, Shadowlands and The Remains Of The Day. However, they quickly became estranged again and Sir Anthony, who stars in the BBC adaptation of King Lear to be shown next week, claimed he does not even know where his daughter lives.

As with Shakespeare’s tragedy, ‘children don’t like their fathers, you don’t have to love each other’, he told Radio Times. Sir Anthony also accused Hollywood of being ‘insidious’ and toxic.

‘Look how people feel entitled to this, that and the other, and they can only be surrounded by Yes people. I don’t want to be surrounded by people like that. The “luvvie” and the kissing cheeks – I can’t stand it. There’s so much hypocrisy.’

The actor, who won an Oscar for his role as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence Of The Lambs, lives in Malibu, California, with his third wife, Colombian antiques dealer Stella Arroyave, 62, who he said had ‘slowed him down’. He explained: ‘She’s very good for me. My wife worries because I work too hard. I will go on working because what else would I do? I’ll retire when my teeth and my hair fall out.’

King Lear is on BBC2 on Monday at 9.30pm.