ANTHONY HOPKINS (Ptolemy) 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 Oliver Stone’s Nixon (1995). He was also presented with 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 as John Quincy Adams in Steven Spielberg’s Amistad.
Hopkins repeated his Oscar-winning role as Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter in both Ridley Scott’s blockbuster Hannibal and in Brett Ratner’s highly successful prequel Red Dragon, in which he starred with Edward Norton, Ralph Fiennes and Emily Watson. He also recorded the narration for the 2000 holiday season’s hit film Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
In 1998, he starred in Meet Joe Black, directed by Martin Brest; Instinct, directed by Jon Turteltaub; and in Titus, Julie Taymor’s film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus.
In 1992, Hopkins appeared in Howard’s End and 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 as well as playing Vanya. He starred in the title role in Surviving Picasso and with Alec Baldwin in The Edge, a dramatic adventure written by David Mamet. 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, The Bounty, Desperate Hours and A Bridge Too Far. 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 Adolf Hitler.
In 1960, Hopkins was invited to audition for Sir Laurence Olivier, then director of the National Theatre at the Old Vic. Two years later, Hopkins was Olivier’s understudy in Strindberg’s Dance of Death. He made his film debut in 1968, playing Richard the Lionheart in The Lion in Winter, starring Peter O’Toole and Katharine 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 U.S. mini-series, in which he played the knighted Polish-born British physician Adam Kelno. 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 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 also appeared in the feature adaptation of Stephen King’s Hearts in Atlantis for director Scott Hicks, the action comedy Bad Company, co-starring Chris Rock, and in director Robert Benton’s adaptation of the Philip Roth novel The Human Stain, opposite Nicole Kidman. He will next be seen opposite Gweneth Paltrow in Proof and is currently in production on The World’s Fastest Indian for director Roger Donaldson.
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