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 was born in the same town as Richard Burton, the actor, and I saw him, he used to come - he and his wife drove by in the car in my father's shop and Burton would come home from Hollywood and ask him for his autograph, and I thought, I want to be like him. And that's all I said to myself, I want to be like that. I want to get out of this environment of my own empty mind.
I'm having a great life. And I'm 73 and they still phone me up and ask me to do a job here and there.
I don't waste time being soft. I'm not cold, but I don't like being, wasting my time with-life's too short.
I know how to be strong. I know how to be ruthless. It's part of my nature. I wouldn't be an actor if I wasn't.
Mortality is the great rescuer, it finally takes you out of everything, and that makes life good.Read Carl Jung. It makes life richer because this is it; none of us know where we go and this is the fun of it.
I enjoy painting. I don't know if I'm good at it, but I paint. I paint very quickly.
I play piano and that's my love. I read and I paint and I compose music, so I've got a pretty full creative life. And it's not because, I'm obsessively creative.
Oliver Stone is a great director and I've seen many films over the years, but I try to create stuff out of my own imagination. I want to break all the rules and mess about with it and make a different movie just for the fun of it.
When I direct I try to keep it a unique design of my own. Naturally you're influenced.
I'll do anything to keep everyone laughing. Things get too intense on film sets. I remember on The Elephant Man, I used to imitate a cat without moving my lips. David Lynch would say, "Cut! Sorry, we've got a noise somewhere on set." Everyone would be looking around for this cat.
I used to be a bit obsessed by acting but not anymore. I do enjoy acting but I probably enjoy it more now because it's easier. I can't work in the theater because to me it's too serious. It's like being in prison for me. I admire people that can do that but I can't do it. I'd rather live my life and do a bit of acting in between.
How do you play Hannibal Lector? Well just don't move. Scare people by being still.
I've always liked to be a meat and potatoes kind of actor who doesn't believe in any of the highfalutin stuff about acting, so I tend to be a little bit more cynical.
I would like to go back to Wales. I'm obsessed with my childhood and at least three times a week dream I am back there.