Table of Contents
Anthony Hopkins
Birth
Anthony Hopkins was born on New Year's Eve 1937 in Margam, Glamorgan, a suburb of Port Talbot.1)
Parents
His parents are baker Richard Arthur Hopkins and Annie Muriel Hopkins.2)
School Days
His school days were fruitless; he preferred to spend his time doing art, such as painting and drawing, or playing the piano, rather than studying.3)
Discipline
To encourage discipline, his parents forced him to attend Jones' West Monmouth Boys' School in Pontypool in 1949. He stayed for five terms before moving on to Cowbridge Grammar School in the Vale of Glamorgan.4)
Richard Burton
Welsh compatriot Richard Burton, whom Anthony Hopkins met at the age of 15, mentored and supported him.5)
College
Anthony Hopkins enrolled immediately in the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, where he graduated in 1957.6)
London
He traveled to London after two years of national service in the British Army, where he studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.7)
Theater Debut
Anthony Hopkins made his professional theatrical debut in 1960 with Swansea Little Theatre's performance of Have a Cigarette at the Palace Theatre in Swansea.8)
Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier saw him after several years in repertory and persuaded him to join the Royal National Theatre in London in 1965.9)
The Dance of Death
Anthony Hopkins took over as Olivier's understudy after the actor got unwell with appendicitis during a performance of August Strindberg's The Dance of Death.10)
Confessions of an Actor
“A fresh young actor in the company of extraordinary potential named Anthony Hopkins was understudying me and went away with the part of Edgar like a cat with a mouse between its jaws,” Olivier later wrote in his memoir, Confessions of an Actor.11)
Moving To Films
Despite his success at the National, Hopkins grew weary of playing the same characters night after night and longed to appear in films. In a 1967 BBC broadcast of A Flea in Her Ear, he made his small-screen debut. Changes, a short directed by Drewe Henley, written and produced by James Scott, and co-starring Jacqueline Pearce, was his first film leading role.12)
TV And Film Actor
Although Hopkins continued to work in theatre, he gradually moved away from it to become more established as a television and film actor.13)
Major Roles
In 1970, he played Charles Dickens in the BBC television film The Great Inimitable Mr. Dickens, and in the BBC miniseries War and Peace, he played Pierre Bezukhov (1972).14)
Next Big Roles
Young Winston, in which he played WWI British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, was released in 1972, and A Bridge Too Far, in which he played British Army commander John Frost, was released in 1977.15)
Highest Paid
Anthony Hopkins was the highest-paid actor in Britain in 1998, appearing in The Mask of Zorro and Meet Joe Black, and he also agreed to reprise his role as Dr Hannibal Lecter for a salary of £15 million.16)
Grinch
Hopkins narrated Dr. Seuss' How the Grinch Stole Christmas in 2000.17)
Walk Of Fame
In 2003, Hopkins was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.18)
The Silence Of The Lambs
Anthony Hopkins' most well-known portrayal was as the cannibalistic serial murderer Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, for which he received the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1991, with Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling, who also won for Best Actress.19)
Top Villain
The AFI named his initial depiction of the character in The Silence of the Lambs as the top cinematic villain.20)
Preparations
Anthony Hopkins is well-known for his role preparation. In interviews, he stated that after he has committed to a project, he would go over his lines as many times as necessary (sometimes up to 200 times) until the lines feel natural to him and he can “perform it without thinking”.21)
Discards Words
Hopkins has remarked that once a scene is completed, he just discards the words, not remembering them later. Others, on the other hand, regularly recall their lines from a film years later.22)
CBE
Anthony Hopkins was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1987 and knighted in 1993 at Buckingham Palace for his contributions to the arts.23)
Honoraries
Hopkins was given an Honorary D.Litt in 1988 and an Honorary Fellowship from the University of Wales, Lampeter in 1992.24)
Freeman
In 1996, he was awarded a freeman of his hometown of Port Talbot.25)
Living And Moving
He had previously traveled to the United States in the late 1970s to pursue a film career, but had returned to London in the late 1980s.26)
Dual Citizenship
Hopkins kept his British citizenship and became a naturalized US citizen on April 12, 2000, explaining, “I have dual citizenship, it just so happens I live in America”.27)
Marriages
Anthony Hopkins has had three marriages. Petronella Barker, from 1966 to 1972, and Jennifer Lynton, from 1973 until 2002, were his first two spouses.28)
Daughter
Abigail Hopkins, an actress and singer, is his daughter from his first marriage (born 20 August 1968).29)
Stella Arroyave
In 2003, he married Stella Arroyave. On Christmas Eve 2012, he commemorated his tenth wedding anniversary with a blessing at St David's Cathedral in Pembrokeshire, Wales' most westernmost point.30)