Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, CBE (born 31 December 1937), best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television. Considered to be one of the greatest living actors Hopkins is perhaps best known for his portrayal of cannibalistic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (for which he received the Academy Award for Best Actor), its sequel Hannibal, and its prequel Red Dragon. Other prominent film credits include The Lion in Winter, Magic, The Elephant Man, 84 Charing Cross Road, Dracula, Legends of the Fall, The Remains of the Day, Amistad, Nixon, and Fracture. Hopkins was born and brought up in Wales. Retaining his British citizenship, he became a U.S. citizen on 12 April 2000 Hopkins' films have spanned a wide variety of genres, from family films to horror. As well as his Academy Award, Hopkins has also won three BAFTA Awards, two Emmys, a Golden Globe and a Cecil B. DeMille Award.
Hopkins was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1993 for services to the artsHe received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003, and was made a Fellow of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2008
1 Early life
2 Career
2.1 Roles
2.2 Acting style
2.3 Hannibal Lecter
3 Personal life
4 Other work
5 Awards
6 Filmography
7 References
8 External links
Hopkins was born in Margam, Port Talbot, Wales, the son of Muriel Anne (née Yeats) and Richard Arthur Hopkins, a baker His schooldays were unproductive; he found that he would rather immerse himself in art, such as painting and drawing, or playing the piano, than attend to his studies. In 1949, to instill discipline, his parents insisted he attend Jones' West Monmouth Boys' School in Pontypool, Wales. He remained there for five terms and was then educated at Cowbridge Grammar School in the Vale of Glamorgan, Wales
Hopkins was influenced and encouraged to become an actor by Welsh compatriot Richard Burton (who was also born at Neath Port Talbot), whom he met briefly at the age of 15. To that end, he enrolled at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff, Wales, from which he graduated in 1957 two years in the British Army doing his national service, he moved to London where he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art
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 Sir Laurence Olivier, who invited him to join the Royal National TheatreHopkins became Olivier's understudy, and filled in when Olivier was struck with appendicitis during a 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
Despite his success at the National, Hopkins tired of repeating the same roles nightly and yearned to be in films. He made his small-screen debut in a 1967 BBC broadcast of A Flea in Her Ear. In 1968, he got his break in The Lion in Winter playing Richard I, along with Peter O'Toole, Katharine Hepburn, and future James Bond star Timothy Dalton, who played Philip II of France.
Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
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