ANTHONY HOPKINS (Dr. Hannibal Lecter) received an Academy Award® for his performance in The Silence of the Lambs (1991), and was subsequently nominated in the same category for his performances in The Remains of the Day (1993) and Nixon (1995). He was also given the Best Actor Award by the British Academy of Film & Television Arts for The Remains of the Day. In 1993, he starred in Richard Attenborough’s Shadowlands with Debra Winger, winning numerous critics awards in the U.S. and Britain. In 1998, he was nominated as Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Amistad.
In 1998, he starred in Meet Joe Black, directed by Martin Brest and Instinct, directed by Jon Turtletaub. He most recently starred in Titus, Julie Taymor’s film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus with Jessica Lange.
In 1992, he appeared in Howards End and in Bram Stoker’s Dracula before starring in Legends of the Fall and The Road to Wellville. He made his directorial debut in 1995 with August, an adaptation of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya for which he composed the musical score and also played Vanya. He starred in the title role in Surviving Picasso and with Alec Baldwin in The Edge, a dramatic adventure written by David Mamet and directed by Lee Tamahori. The Mask of Zorro, directed by Martin Campbell and co-starring Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, was released in July 1998, and Amistad, directed by Steven Spielberg, was released in December 1997.
Earlier films include 84 Charing Cross Road, The Elephant Man, Magic and A Bridge Too Far. The Bounty and Desperate Hours were his first two collaborations with Dino De Laurentiis Company. In American television, he received two Emmy Awards for The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case (1976) in which he portrayed Bruno Hauptmann, and The Bunker (1981) in which he portrayed Adolph Hitler.
Born December 31, 1937 in Margam, near Port Talbot, Wales, he is the only child of Muriel and Richard Hopkins. His father was a banker. He was educated at Cowbridge Grammar School. At 17, he wandered into a YMCA amateur theatrical production and knew immediately that he was in the right place. With newfound enthusiasm, combined with proficiency at the piano, he won a scholarship to the Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff where he studied for two years (1955-1957).
He entered the British Army in 1958 for mandatory military training, spending most of the two-year tour of duty clerking in the Royal Artillery unit at Bulford.
In 1960, he was invited to audition for Sir Laurence Olivier, then director of the National Theater at the Old Vic. Two years later, Hopkins was Olivier’s understudy in Strindberg’s “Dance of Death.” Hopkins made his film debut in 1967, playing Richard the Lionheart in The Lion in the Winter, starring Peter O’Toole and Katherine Hepburn. He received a British Academy Award nomination and the film received an Academy Award® as Best Picture.
American television viewers discovered Hopkins in the 1973 ABC production of Leon Uris’ QBVII, the first American mini-series, in which he played the knighted Polish-born British physician Adam Kleno who is ultimately destroyed by his wartime past. The following year, he starred on Broadway in the National Theatre production of “Equus,” and later mounted another production of the play in Los Angeles where he has lived for 10 years, working extensively in American films and television.
After starring as Captain Bligh in The Bounty (1984), he returned to England and the National Theatre in David Hare’s “Pravda,” for which he received the British Theatre Association’s Best Actor Award and The Observer Award for Outstanding achievement at the 1985 Laurence Olivier Awards. During this time at the National he starred in Antony and Cleopatra and King Lear.
Hopkins is currently filming a feature adaptation of Stephen King’s Hearts In Atlantis for director Scott Hicks. He recorded the narration for this holiday season’s hit film Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas. In January, he will begin filming The Devil and Daniel Webster, which will be directed by and co-stars Alec Baldwin.
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