Anthony Hopkins - biography

“I could never understand how Joe Louis was the world champion when Bogart was the toughest guy in the world.”

“I thought Dean was fantastic!  Maybe he’s lucky he died when he did.  His [East of Eden] performance now is so stereotyped.  All the bad imitations have destroyed James Dean.”

“I worked with Lawrence Olivier some years ago.  He was a great mentor.”

“Richard Burton came from the same town as me, so I thought I’d follow my nose, and follow my luck.  I think I’ve been very lucky.”

“When you see Brando in the famous cab scene in ‘On the Waterfront’, it’s still breathtaking.”

“Actors I admire?  Ed Harris, or course, I think he’s terrific; because I know he always had to fight being what he looked like a lot, but I think he’s a terrific actor.”

“All Stanislavsky ever said was: ‘Avoid generalities.’”

“Blank face is fine.  The computer works faster than the brain, don’t forget.  The art of acting is not to act.  Once you show them more, what you show them, in fact, is bad acting.”

“Every time I try to retire, or even think of retiring from acting, my agent comes up with a script.”

“I am able to play monsters well.  I understand monsters.  I understand madmen.”

“I don’t know what acting is, but I enjoy it.”

“I have no interest in Shakespeare and all that British nonsense...  I just wanted to get famous and all the rest is hogwash.”

“I like the good life too much, I’m not good at going on stage night after night and on wet Wednesday afternoons.”

“I think all those actors from that generation, like Bogart - they were wonderful actors.  They didn’t act.  They just came on and they did it, and the characters were wonderful.”

“I’m always cast in these strange men...  that’s not me, really.”

“I’m most suspicious of scripts that have a lot of stage direction at the top of the page...  sunrise over the desert and masses of...  a whole essay before you get to the dialogue.”

“Oh yes.  I’m an actor, so I just learn my lines, and show up and do it.  I gave it a little bit of thought.”

“Everything is dying of art-attacks.  Everyone is so busy being artistic - especially directors.  They dehydrate the simplicity of it.  I just like to get on with it.  Do it!  Rehearse it!  Shoot the damned thing!  Don’t talk about it, stumbling round for a needle in a haystack when it’s right there under his butt end.  Shoot it!”

“I know that the arts are important.  I’m not denying that, but I can’t associate myself with all the claptrap that goes on around it.”

“I would like to go back to Wales.  I’m obsessed with my childhood and at least three times a week dream I am back there.”

“I have a punishing workout regimen.  Every day I do three minutes on a treadmill, then I lie down, drink a glass of vodka and smoke a cigarette.”

“My father was grounded, a very meat-and-potatoes man.  He was a baker.”

“And I love a scary movie.  It makes your toes curl and it’s not you going through it.”

“I don’t have people following me around, like bodyguards.  I don’t know how people live like that.  Maybe the young movie stars have to live like that, I don’t know.  But it seems a little crazy to me.  I don’t think you need all that stuff.”

“Well, everyone likes movies when they’re a little kid.”

“I’ve got a great sense of humour.”

“Why love if losing hurts so much?  I have no answers anymore; only the life I have lived.  The pain now is part of the happiness then.”

“I came here in 1974 to do a play, and then I went to L.A.  I really like living in America.  I feel more at home here than anywhere else.”

“I have dual citizenship, it just so happens I live in America.”

“I love life because what more is there.”

“I love roller coasters.  I don’t get a chance often, but I’ve gone to Magic Mountain and gone on the rides.  I love roller coasters.”

“I never make conscious decisions.”

“I was a total loner, not by self-design.  I just didn’t know what the hell to say to people.  I was so shy.  I used to stammer and lisp and dribble at the mouth.”

“I worked with Steven Spielberg on Amistad...  he seemed so very secure in himself that he let me do things.”

“I’m the slowest driver in the world.”

“I’ve got no need to prove to myself that I can do Shakespeare.  I’ve done it.”

“It was a challenge, to work with Oliver Stone.”

“This industry has been really good to me.  It’s been a great life.  I’m not through yet.  I’m ready when you are, Mr.  DeMille.”

“We are dying from overthinking.  We are slowly killing ourselves by thinking about everything.  Think.  Think.  Think.  You can never trust the human mind anyway.  It’s a death trap.”

Anthony Hopkins has appeared in the following films:
The White Bus (1967)
The Lion in Winter (1968)
The Looking Glass War (1969)
Hamlet (1969)
When Eight Bells Toll (1971)
Young Winston (1972)
A Doll’s House (1973)
The Girl from Petrovka (1974)
Juggernaut (1974)
Audrey Rose (1977)
A Bridge Too Far (1977)
International Velvet (1978)
Magic (1978)
The Elephant Man (1980)
A Change of Seasons (1980)
The Bounty (1984)
The Good Father (1985)
84 Charing Cross Road (1987)
The Dawning (1988)
A Chorus of Disapproval (1988)
Desperate Hours (1990)
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Freejack (1992)
Spotswood (1992)
Howards End (1992)
Dracula (1992)
Chaplin (1992)
The Trial (1993)
The Innocent (1993)
The Remains of the Day (1993)
Shadowlands (1993)
The Road to Wellville (1994)
Legends of the Fall (1994)
Nixon (1995)
August (1996)
Surviving Picasso (1996)
The Edge (1997)
Amistad (1997)
The Mask of Zorro (1998)
Meet Joe Black (1998)
Instinct (1999)
Titus (1999)
Mission: Impossible II (2000)
How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)
Hannibal (2001)
Hearts in Atlantis (2001)
Bad Company (2002)
Red Dragon (2002)
The Human Stain (2003)
The Devil and Daniel Webster (2004)
Alexander (2004)
Proof (2005)
The World’s Fastest Indian (2005)
Bobby (2006)
All the King’s Men (2006)
Slipstream (2007)
Fracture (2007)
Beowulf (2007)
The City of Your Final Destination (2007)
Where I Stand: The Hank Greenspun Story (2008)
Immutable Dream of Snow Lion (2008)
Bare Knuckles (2009)
Untitled Woody Allen London Project (2010)
The Wolfman (2010)
Shoot the Messenger (2010)
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger (2010)
360 (2011)
The Rite (2011)
Thor (2011)


Anthony Hopkins directed the following films:
August (1996)
Slipstream (2007)