Anthony Hopkins

Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins (born 31 December 1937) is a Welsh actor. One of Britain's most recognisable and prolific actors, he is known for his performances on the screen and stage. Hopkins has received numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, four BAFTA Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Laurence Olivier Award. He has also received the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2005 and the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement in 2008. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to drama in 1993.

After graduating from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in 1957, Hopkins trained at RADA (the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) in London. He was then spotted by Laurence Olivier, who invited him to join the Royal National Theatre in 1965. Productions at the National included King Lear (his favourite Shakespeare play), Coriolanus, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra. In 1985, he received acclaim and a Laurence Olivier Award for his performance in the David Hare play Pravda. His last stage play was a West End production of M. Butterfly in 1989.

Hopkins's early film roles include The Lion in Winter (1968), A Bridge Too Far (1977), and The Elephant Man (1980). He won two Academy Awards for Best Actor for playing Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and an octogenarian with dementia in The Father (2020), becoming the oldest Best Actor Oscar winner for the latter. His other Oscar-nominated films include The Remains of the Day (1993), Nixon (1995), Amistad (1997), and The Two Popes (2019). Other notable films include 84 Charing Cross Road (1987), Howards End (1992), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Shadowlands (1993), Legends of the Fall (1994), The Mask of Zorro (1998), and the Marvel Cinematic Universe's Thor films (2011–2017).

For his work on television, Hopkins received a British Academy Television Award for Best Actor for his performance in War and Peace (1972). He won two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series for The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case (1976) and The Bunker (1981). Other notable projects include the BBC film The Dresser (2015), PBS's King Lear (2018), and the HBO series Westworld (2016–2018).

Philip Anthony Hopkins was born in the Margam district of Port Talbot, Wales, on 31 December 1937, the son of Annie Muriel (née Yeates) and baker Richard Arthur Hopkins. One of his grandfathers was from Wiltshire, England. He stated his father's working-class values have always underscored his life, "Whenever I get a feeling that I may be special or different, I think of my father and I remember his hands – his hardened, broken hands." His school days were unproductive; he would rather immerse himself in art, such as painting and drawing, or playing the piano than attend to his studies. In 1949, to instil discipline, his parents insisted he attend Jones' West Monmouth Boys' School in Pontypool. He remained there for five terms and was then educated at Cowbridge Grammar School in the Vale of Glamorgan. In an interview in 2002, he stated, "I was a poor learner, which left me open to ridicule and gave me an inferiority complex. I grew up absolutely convinced I was stupid."

Hopkins was inspired by fellow Welsh actor Richard Burton, whom he met at the age of 15. He later called Burton "very gracious, very nice" but elaborated, "I don't know where everyone gets the idea we were good friends. I suppose it's because we are both Welsh and grew up near the same town. For the record, I didn't really know him at all." He enrolled at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff, from which he graduated in 1957. He next met Burton in 1975 as Burton prepared to take over Hopkins's role as the psychiatrist in Peter Shaffer's Equus, with Hopkins stating, "He was a phenomenal actor. So was Peter O'Toole – they were wonderful, larger-than-life characters." He spent two years doing his national service between 1958 and 1960, which he served in the British Army's Royal Artillery regiment where he was known as "Gunner Hopkins", before moving to London to study at RADA (the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) from where he graduated in 1963.

Hopkins made his first professional stage appearance in the Palace Theatre, Swansea, in 1960 with Swansea Little Theatre's production of Have a Cigarette. In 1965, after several years in repertory, he was spotted by Laurence Olivier, who invited him to join the Royal National Theatre in London. Hopkins became Olivier's understudy, and filled in when Olivier was struck with appendicitis during a 1967 production of August Strindberg's The Dance of Death. Olivier later noted in his memoir, Confessions of an Actor, that, "A new young actor in the company of exceptional promise named Anthony Hopkins was understudying me and walked away with the part of Edgar like a cat with a mouse between its teeth." Up until that night, Hopkins was always nervous prior to going on stage. This has since changed, and Hopkins quoted his mentor as saying: "He [Olivier] said: 'Remember: "nerves" is vanity – you're wondering what people think of you; to hell with them, just jump off the edge'. It was great advice."

He made his small-screen debut in a 1967 BBC broadcast of A Flea in Her Ear. His first starring role in a film came in 1964 in Changes, a short directed by Drewe Henley, written and produced by James Scott and co-starring Jacqueline Pearce. In 1968, Hopkins got his break in The Lion in Winter playing Richard the Lionheart, a performance which saw him nominated for the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role. Hopkins portrayed Charles Dickens in the BBC television film The Great Inimitable Mr. Dickens in 1970, and Pierre Bezukhov in the BBC's mini series War and Peace (1972), receiving the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor for his performance in the latter. Making a name for himself as a screen actor, he appeared in Frank Pierson's neo-noir action thriller The Looking Glass War (1970), and Étienne Périer's When Eight Bells Toll (1971). The first of five collaborations with director Richard Attenborough, in 1972 Hopkins starred as British politician David Lloyd George in Young Winston.

In 1973, he again portrayed David Lloyd George in the BBC miniseries The Edwardians which aired in the US in 1974 on Masterpiece Theatre. Hopkins starred in a film adaptation of the Henrik Ibsen play A Doll's House (1973) alongside Claire Bloom, Ralph Richardson, Denholm Elliott, and Edith Evans. He then appeared in the comedy The Girl from Petrovka (1974) with Goldie Hawn and Hal Holbrook and also starred in the Richard Lester suspense film Juggernaut opposite Richard Harris and Omar Sharif. In October 1974, Hopkins played the psychologist Dysart in the original Broadway production of Sir Peter Shaffer's play Equus, starring opposite Peter Firth. For this performance, he received the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actor in a Play for the 1974–75 season. In 1977, he played British Army officer John Frost in Attenborough's World War II-set film A Bridge Too Far. In 1978, he starred in the sequel to National Velvet (1944), entitled International Velvet with Tatum O'Neal, Christopher Plummer, which was directed by Bryan Forbes. That same year, he also starred in Attenborough's psychological horror film Magic about a demonic ventriloquist's puppet with Gene Siskel adding it as one of the best films of the year. In 1979, Hopkins appeared as Prospero in a production of The Tempest held at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.

In 1980, he starred in David Lynch's The Elephant Man as the English doctor Sir Frederick Treves, who attends to Joseph Merrick (portrayed by John Hurt), a severely deformed man in 19th century London. The film received critical praise and attention from critics and received eight Academy Award nominations including for Best Picture. That year he also starred opposite Shirley MacLaine in A Change of Seasons and famously didn't get along with MacLaine, adding "she was the most obnoxious actress I have ever worked with." The film was an immense box office and critical failure. In 1981, he starred in the CBS television film The Bunker portraying Adolf Hitler during weeks in and around his underground bunker in Berlin before and during the Battle of Berlin. John O'Connor praised Hopkins in his New York Times review: "The portrait becomes all the more riveting through an extraordinarily powerful performance from Anthony Hopkins. His Hitler is mad, often contemptible, but always understandable. Part of the problem, perhaps, is that the monster becomes a little too understandable. He is not made sympathetic, exactly, but he is given decidedly pathetic dimensions, making him just that much more acceptable as a dramatic and historical character." For his performance, he received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series or Movie. That same year he starred as Paul the Apostle opposite Robert Foxworth as Saint Peter in the biblical drama and miniseries Peter and Paul (1981).

In 1983, Hopkins also became a company member of The Mirror Theater Ltd's Repertory Company. In 1984, he portrayed Deeley in Harold Pinter's play Old Times at the Roundabout Theatre in New York. In 1984, he starred opposite Mel Gibson in The Bounty as William Bligh, captain of the Royal Navy ship HMS Bounty, in a more accurate retelling of the mutiny on the Bounty. The following year, he starred as Quasimodo in the CBS television film The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1982). The film also starred Derek Jacobi, David Suchet, Tim Pigott-Smith, Nigel Hawthorne, and John Gielgud. He also starred in Strangers and Brothers (1984), Arch of Triumph (1984), Guilty Conscience (1985), Mussolini and I (1985), and The Tenth Man (1988). In 1985, Hopkins starred opposite Colin Firth in the Arthur Schnitzler play The Lonely Road at The Old Vic in London. That same year, he featured as Lambert Le Roux in the National Theatre production of Pravda in Sir David Hare and Howard Brenton's satirical play on the British newspaper industry in the Thatcher era. Receiving acclaim for his performance, Hopkins won the Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement. Frank Rich in his New York Times review wrote, "Mr. Hopkins creates a memorable image of a perversely brilliant modern-day barbarian."