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Welsh Celebrities & Personalities

Hopkins, Sir Anthony (1937- )

British stage and film actor. Hopkins was born in Port Talbot, south Wales, and educated at Cardiff College of Drama and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Early plays in which he starred include Coriolanus (1971) and Macbeth (1972). His Broadway début in 1974, in the Peter Shaffer play Equus, won him several awards. He made his first screen appearance in a feature film as Richard the Lion-Hearted in The Lion in Winter (1968). Hopkins's notable work includes A Doll's House (1973); Richard Lester's Juggernaut (1974); The Elephant Man (1980); Commander Bligh in The Bounty (1984); and roles in The Good Father (1986) and 84 Charing Cross Road (1987). He has also acted in many British television programmes, including All Creatures Great and Small (1974), The Lindebergh Kidnapping Case (1974), The Bunker (1980), and Great Expectations (1989). In 1991, Hopkins's career was boosted by his commanding role in Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs; his outstanding performance as the serial killer Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter won him many fans and an Academy Award (Oscar) for Best Actor.

Hopkins has not been typecast and defined by a single achievement, appearing in both film and stage productions during his career. On stage in 1989 he appeared in David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly. Since The Silence of the Lambs, he has also given critically acclaimed film performances in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Howards End (1992), The Remains of the Day (Academy Award nomination for Best Actor, 1993), Shadowlands (1993), Legends of the Fall (1994), and Nixon (1995). In 1995 he directed his first film, August, a loose version of Uncle Vanya (1899) by Chekhov, transposed to Wales. He received a knighthood in 1993.