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
Some nights you might go through an entire performance and not feel a thing, and the audience may have a much better time, 'cause if you're enjoying yourself on stage too much, they're having a terrible time because they can't hear you. And if you're a woman your mascara's running.
Things have changed so much now. Everything is downloaded onto computers. I'm not a computer-savvy guy, but with downloading the movie industry has changed.
That's what happens if you don't address the darkness in you. You become repressed and depressed and suicidal.
I never cling on to hope or certainty. They're the enemies of peace.
I could stay making nice safe BBC movies for the rest of my life, so I decided to risk it. It was a challenge, to work with Oliver Stone.
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.
You have to have humor. If you don't have humor and you take yourself seriously, you're dead in the water. You have to be jostled. I love it. You've gotta have a laugh. It's better than working for a living.
I'm very much a loner. I don't like long relationships with people and I always keep people at a distance.
I just learn my lines, go on set. Do my preparation, whatever that is. Have a cup of coffee. Say hello to everyone. And be friendly. "Action" - and then do it.
I don't have any [favourite role]. I'm just a working actor.
I never make conscious decisions. If my agent says to me, "It's a good script," I'll do it. I don't plan. I've got a lot of things to do. I'm at the roulette table and my luck seems to be running at the moment. I might as well stay there until it runs out.
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 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 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.