Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, CBE, is a Welsh actor of film, stage, and television. After graduating from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in 1957, he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and was then spotted by Laurence Olivier who invited him to join the Royal National Theatre. In 1968, he got his break in film in The Lion in Winter, playing King Richard the Lionheart...
NationalityWelsh
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth31 December 1937
CityMargam, Wales
I don't know what I believe.
I love to read, and so I've been reading everything I can, not intensely, but I love to read so I read "Origin of Species" by Darwin and I can't make head or tail of E=MC squared by Einstein, but I try to baffle my way through that.
I have no education, I have no academic background in painting or in music, but I write music and I compose music and I write and I sell paintings, and my rule is, well, they can't arrest me.
There's a thing that if you - somebody in faith is always troubled by doubt, and somebody by doubt is always wanted by faith. So it's a kind of paradox.
I never cling on to hope or certainty. They're the enemies of peace.
I said once that if they gave me enough money to read the phone book, I'd do it. I live in a total state of non-expectation. I don't expect things, and I keep my expectations very low about everything
I found a way into the acting business because I thought, well, it beats working for a living, and so that's what I do. But I still feel like a bit of a stranger in it all. I've never really belonged anywhere.
My life has been a kind of mystery to me. By all my logical, linear thinking I started out in school as a little boy, I didn't have a clue about anything. What they were talking about in school, couldn't play sports, couldn't learn, and I was bottom of the class.
If you're in a successful play and the play is working well - I mean successful because the audiences like it, the audiences respond well - it's a pleasure.
Acting is about listening and reacting. John Wayne was right: Acting is just reacting. You don't have to do much - as long as you stay out of the way of others. That's why it works.
I've always been hopeless at everything when I was a kid. That's why I became an actor - 'cause I couldn't do anything else.
I'm very much a loner. I don't like long relationships with people and I always keep people at a distance.
I'm not unfamiliar with music, and I really do write music. I've gotten a talent for it. I don't have the technical skills, but I do plan to learn.
I love the hour in makeup. It gives you time to think and have a cup of coffee. It's my favorite part of the day.