Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, CBE (born 31 December 1937), 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.[4] 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 arts. He 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.
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 (and also Neath Port Talbot born) Richard Burton, 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. After two years in the British Army doing his national service, he then moved to London where he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
In 1965, after several years in repertory, he was spotted by Sir Laurence Olivier, who invited him to join the Royal National Theatre. Hopkins 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.”[9]
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.
Although Hopkins continued in theatre (most notably at the National Theatre as Lambert Le Roux in Pravda by David Hare and Howard Brenton and as Antony in Antony and Cleopatra opposite Judi Dench as well as in the Broadway production of Peter Shaffer’s Equus, directed by John Dexter) he gradually moved away from it to become more established as a television and film actor. His Pierre Bezukhov for the BBC War and Peace (1972) was particularly memorable. He has since gone on to enjoy a long career, winning many plaudits and awards for his performances. Hopkins was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) in 1987, and a Knight Bachelor in 1993.[10][11] In 1996, Hopkins was awarded an honorary fellowship from the University of Wales, Lampeter.
Hopkins has stated that his role as Burt Munro, whom he portrayed in his 2005 film The World’s Fastest Indian, was his favourite. He also asserted that Munro was the easiest role that he had played because both men have a similar outlook on life.
In 2006, Hopkins was the recipient of the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime achievement. In 2008, he received the BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award.
Hopkins is set to portray Odin, the father of Thor, in the upcoming film adaptation of Marvel Comics’ Thor. On 24 February 2010 it was announced that Hopkins had been cast in the upcoming supernatural thriller The Rite. He will play a priest who is “an expert in exorcisms and whose methods are not necessarily traditional”.
1967 : A Flea in Her Ear, The White Bus,
1968 : The Lion in Winter,
1969 : The Looking Glass War, Hamlet, Department S,
1970 : The Great Inimitable Mr. Dickens, Hearts and Flowers,
1971 : When Eight Bells Toll,
1972 : Young Winston, War and Peace, A Doll’s House,
1974 : The Girl from Petrovka, QB VII, Juggernaut, All Creatures Great and Small, The Childhood Friend,
1976 : Dark Victory, The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case, Victory at Entebbe,
1977 : A Bridge Too Far, Audrey Rose,
1978 : Magic, International Velvet,
1979 : Mayflower: The Pilgrims’ Adventure,
1980 : The Elephant Man, A Change of Seasons,
1981 : The Bunker, Peter and Paul, Othello,
1982 : The Hunchback of Notre Dame,
1983 : A Married Man,
1984 : The Bounty,
1985 : Hollywood Wives, Arch of Triumph, Guilty Conscience, Mussolini and I, The Good Father,
1987 : 84 Charing Cross Road,
1988 : The Dawning, Across the Lake, A Chorus of Disapproval, The Tenth Man,
1989 : Great Expectations,
1990 : Desperate Hours,
1991 : The Silence of the Lambs, One Man’s War,
1992 : Freejack, Spotswood, Howards End, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Chaplin,
1993 : The Trial, The Innocent, The Remains of the Day, Shadowlands,
1994 : The Road to Wellville, Legends of the Fall,
1995 : Nixon,
1996 : August, Surviving Picasso,
1997 : The Edge, Amistad,
1998 : The Mask of Zorro, Meet Joe Black,
1999 : Instinct, Titus,
2000 : Mission: Impossible II, The Grinch,
2001 : Hannibal, Hearts in Atlantis,
2002 : Bad Company, Red Dragon,
2003 : The Human Stain,
2004 : Alexander,
2005 : Proof, The World’s Fastest Indian,
2006 : Bobby, All the King’s Men,
2007 : The Devil and Daniel Webster, Slipstream, Fracture, Beowulf, The City of Your Final Destination,
2008 : Where I Stand: The Hank Greenspun Story, Immutable Dream of Snow Lion,
2009 : Bare Knuckles,
2010 : The Wolfman, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger,
2011 : Thor, The Rite,
As of 2007, Hopkins resides in Los Angeles. He had moved to the United States once before during the 1970s to pursue his film career, but returned to London in the late 1980s. However, he decided to return to the U.S. following his 1990s success. Retaining his British citizenship, he became a naturalized U.S. citizen on 12 April 2000, and celebrated with a 3,000-mile road trip across the country.
Hopkins has been married three times. His first two wives were Petronella Barker (1967–1972) and Jennifer Lynton (1973–2002). He is now married to Colombian-born Stella Arroyave. He has a daughter from his first marriage, Abigail Hopkins (b. 20 August 1968), who is an actress and singer.
He has offered his support to various charities and appeals, notably becoming President of the National Trust’s Snowdonia Appeal, raising funds for the preservation of the Snowdonia National Park in North Wales, and to aid the Trust’s efforts to purchase parts of Snowdon. A book celebrating these efforts, Anthony Hopkins’ Snowdonia, was published together with Graham Nobles. Hopkins has been a patron of the YMCA centre in his hometown of Port Talbot, South Wales for more than 20 years, having first joined the YMCA in the 1950s. Hopkins also takes time to support other various philanthropic groups. He was a Guest of Honour at a Gala Fundraiser for Women in Recovery, Inc., a Venice, California-based non-profit organization offering rehabilitation assistance to women in recovery from substance abuse. Although he resides in Malibu, California he is also a volunteer teacher at the Ruskin School of Acting in Santa Monica, California.
Hopkins has attended 12-Step meetings for alcohol addiction, and suddenly stopped drinking in 1975. As stated to TMZ in October 2010, Hopkins is a vegetarian. In 2008 he embarked on a weight loss program and by 2010 he has lost 80 pounds.[23]
Hopkins is a prominent member of environmental protection group Greenpeace and as of early 2008 featured in a television advertisement campaign, voicing concerns about Japan’s continuing annual whale hunt. Hopkins has been a patron of RAPt (Rehabilitation for Addicted Prisoners Trust) since its early days and helped open their first intensive drug and alcohol rehabilitation unit at Downview (HM Prison) in 1992.
He is an admirer of the comedian Tommy Cooper. On 23 February 2008, as patron of the Tommy Cooper Society, the actor unveiled a commemorative statue in the entertainer’s home town of Caerphilly, South Wales. For the ceremony, Hopkins donned Cooper’s trademark fez and performed a comic routine.
