Anthony Hopkins | WatchedThis
Anthony Hopkins
Acting
Biography
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins CBE (born December 31, 1937) is a Welsh actor, film director, and film producer. He is the recipient of numerous accolades, including two Academy Awards, four British Academy Film Awards, two Primetime Emmy Awards and a British Academy Television Award. He has also received an honorary Golden Globe Award and the BAFTA Fellowship from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts. In 1993, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to the arts, and in 2003, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his achievements in the motion picture industry. After graduating from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in 1957, Hopkins 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 1965. Productions at the National included King Lear, his favourite Shakespeare play. His last stage play was a West End production of M. Butterfly in 1989. In 1968, Hopkins achieved recognition in film, playing Richard the Lionheart in The Lion in Winter. In the mid-1970s, Richard Attenborough, who directed five Hopkins films, called him "the greatest actor of his generation." In 1991, he portrayed Hannibal Lecter in the psychological horror film The Silence of the Lambs, winning the Academy Award for Best Actor. He reprised the role in its sequel Hannibal and the prequel Red Dragon. Other notable films include The Elephant Man (1980), 84 Charing Cross Road (1987), Howards End (1992), Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992), Shadowlands (1993), Legends of the Fall (1994), Meet Joe Black (1998), The Mask of Zorro (1998), Thor (2011), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Transformers: The Last Knight (2017), and Thor: Ragnarok (2017). He received four more Academy Award nominations for The Remains of the Day (1993), Nixon (1995), Amistad (1997) and The Two Popes (2019) before winning a fourth BAFTA Award and a second Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of an elderly man diagnosed with dementia in The Father (2020), becoming the oldest Best Actor Oscar winner to date. Since making his television debut with the BBC in 1967, Hopkins has continued to appear on television. In 1973 he received a British Academy Television Award for Best Actor for his performance in War and Peace. In 2015, he starred in the BBC film The Dresser alongside Ian McKellen. In 2018, he starred in King Lear opposite Emma Thompson. In 2016 and 2018, he starred in the HBO television series Westworld, for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.
Filmography Movies
Acting
The Silence of the Lambs
Clarice Starling is a top student at the FBI's training academy. Jack Crawford wants Clarice to interview Dr. Hannibal Lecter, a brilliant psychiatrist who is also a violent psychopath, serving life behind bars for various acts of murder and cannibalism. Crawford believes that Lecter may have insight into a case and that Starling, as an attractive young woman, may be just the bait to draw him out.
Meet Joe Black
Bill Parrish has it all - success, wealth and power. Days before his 65th birthday, he receives a visit from a mysterious stranger, Joe Black, who soon reveals himself as Death. In exchange for extra time, Bill agrees to serve as Joe's earthly guide. But will he regret his choice when Joe unexpectedly falls in love with Bill's beautiful daughter Susan?
Mission: Impossible II
With computer genius Luther Stickell at his side and a beautiful thief on his mind, agent Ethan Hunt races across Australia and Spain to stop a former IMF agent from unleashing a genetically engineered biological weapon called Chimera. This mission, should Hunt choose to accept it, plunges him into the center of an international crisis of terrifying magnitude.
The Remains of the Day
A rule-bound head butler's world of manners and decorum in the household he maintains is tested by the arrival of a housekeeper who falls in love with him in post-WWI Britain. The possibility of romance and his master's cultivation of ties with the Nazi cause challenge his carefully maintained veneer of servitude.
Zero Contact
Produced in 17 different countries entirely virtually during the 2020 global pandemic, the film follows five characters based all over the world, connected only by their devotion to the late founder and tech titan Finley Hart. Forced to work together to shut down Hart’s most secret invention, a machine that is either the solution to mankind’s problems or the end of the earth.
Thor
Against his father Odin's will, The Mighty Thor - a powerful but arrogant warrior god - recklessly reignites an ancient war. Thor is cast down to Earth and forced to live among humans as punishment. Once here, Thor learns what it takes to be a true hero when the most dangerous villain of his world sends the darkest forces of Asgard to invade Earth.
All the King's Men
The story of an idealist's rise to power in the world of Louisiana politics and the corruption that leads to his ultimate downfall. Based on the 1946 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel written by Robert Penn Warren, loosely based on the story of real-life politician Huey Long.
Beowulf
A 6th-century Scandinavian warrior named Beowulf embarks on a mission to slay the man-like ogre, Grendel.
Bad Company
When a Harvard-educated CIA agent is killed during an operation, the secret agency recruits his twin brother.
The Elephant Man
A Victorian surgeon rescues a heavily disfigured man being mistreated by his "owner" as a side-show freak. Behind his monstrous façade, there is revealed a person of great intelligence and sensitivity. Based on the true story of Joseph Merrick (called John Merrick in the film), a severely deformed man in 19th century London.
Production
Bobby
In 1968 the lives of a retired doorman, hotel manager, lounge singer, busboy, beautician and others intersect in the wake of Robert F. Kennedy's assassination at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles.
Elyse
Elyse appears, on the surface, to have it all - a beautiful family, and enviable home, a charmed lifestyle. However, all is not what it seems, and her enviable existence starts to unravel. Institutionalised following a catastrophic accident, she is deeply traumatised and seemingly unreachable. Only the care from her doctor and the unconditional love from her nurse might lead to her recovery.
Elyse
Elyse appears, on the surface, to have it all - a beautiful family, and enviable home, a charmed lifestyle. However, all is not what it seems, and her enviable existence starts to unravel. Institutionalised following a catastrophic accident, she is deeply traumatised and seemingly unreachable. Only the care from her doctor and the unconditional love from her nurse might lead to her recovery.
Slipstream
Aging screenwriter Felix Bonhoeffer has lived his life in two states of existence: in reality and his own interior world. While working on a murder mystery script, and unaware that his brain is on the verge of implosion, Felix is baffled when his characters start to appear in his life, and vice versa.
Slipstream
Aging screenwriter Felix Bonhoeffer has lived his life in two states of existence: in reality and his own interior world. While working on a murder mystery script, and unaware that his brain is on the verge of implosion, Felix is baffled when his characters start to appear in his life, and vice versa.
August
Set in 1890s North Wales over a long, hot August weekend, the Victorian calm of a household is suddenly upset with the arrival of a London couple who impose their city ways and thoughts on the more rurally based family. An adaptation of Anton Chekhov's play, "Uncle Vanya."
Return Journey
A dramatic recreation of Dylan Thomas' last tour of America, starring actor Bob Kingdom as the Welsh poet. Originally a successful stage production, the show was adapted for this recorded version by renowned actor Anthony Hopkins (in his directorial debut). Dylan Thomas was one of the twentieth century's greatest poets. He was born in the Uplands district of Swansea in 1914 and died in New York in 1953 at the age of 39. Towards the end of his life, Dylan Thomas toured America, performing his works before sell out audiences across the country. The film features the poems "Fern Hill"; "Do Not Go Gently into that Good Night"; "A Poem in October"; "And Death Shall Have No Dominion"; "A Story (The Outing)" and "Return Journey" .
Blackway
A young woman newly returned to her hometown becomes the subject of harassment by a man named Blackway, an ex-cop turned violent crime lord who operates with impunity in this small community on the edge of the wilderness. Forsaken by the local townspeople—and advised by the Sheriff to leave town—Lillian decides instead to take a stand against her sociopathic stalker, and enlists the help of ex-logger Lester and his laconic young sidekick.
Mary and the Seven Dwarfs
Having spent her entire life behind the convent walls, old and dignified nun Mary decides to fulfill her childhood dream. The only obstacle on her way is her fragmentary, almost non-existent memory. Mary is afraid that her ultimate dream may turn out to be a sin instead.
August
Set in 1890s North Wales over a long, hot August weekend, the Victorian calm of a household is suddenly upset with the arrival of a London couple who impose their city ways and thoughts on the more rurally based family. An adaptation of Anton Chekhov's play, "Uncle Vanya."
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