Welsh actor, director and film producer, who has received many awards, including two Academy Awards, four BAFTAs, two Emmys, the Cecil B. DeMille Award and a British Academy Television Award. In 1993, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to the arts. Hopkins received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003 and the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2008.
His first job was as an assistant stage manager in Manchester, England, first appearing on stage himself in 1955. Within the decade, he was drinking so heavily that when he got on stage, he would be staggering drunk. The booze became blatantly out of control when he went to Hollywood in 1970 to film a remake of Dark Victory. He was having blackouts when he got into AA, and says that AA, “saved my life,” remaining in sobriety programs ever since.
His career didn’t move into high gear until he did BBC’s War & Peace (1973) and then QB VII (1974). He quit drinking and moved to Hollywood in 1976, after securing a lead role in The Elephant Man. He received the Best Actor in March 1992 for his work in the smash hit film, Silence of the Lambs, filmed in 1991. He also earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination on 25 March 1996 for the titular role in Nixon.
The only child of a baker and his wife, Hopkins remembers being an oddball during a lonely childhood. He hated school and did not do well, ending up with more corporal punishment than credits. Told repeatedly that he was a failure, he carried that feeling of inadequacy with him as an actor. He said that the anger he felt has been a lifelong companion. Though a poor student, he won a scholarship to the Welsh College of Music and Drama. He also attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London.
Hopkins made his major stage debut in Julius Caesar (1964). His first film was The Lion in Winter in 1968 with Peter O’Toole and Katherine Hepburn. He was an understudy to Laurence Olivier in the London stage production of Dance of Death in 1966. When Olivier became ill, Hopkins stepped into the role and walked away with the part like a cat with a mouse between its teeth. Perhaps his most memorable role was that of the psychopath Hannibal Lector in Silence of the Lambs (1991). Tilting with his own demons, he was magnificent in roles of deeply troubled characters.
After a brief and stormy first marriage to actress Petronela Barker in 1967 that produced one daughter, he married Jennifer Lynton in 1973. It was not until she was adult that he became acquainted with his daughter, now known by her adult name, Abigail Harrison.
He had a personal crisis of confidence in 1995-1996 that seemed to have returned when he had an interview on 13 December 1998. He announced his retirement from acting with the observation that “I look back and see a desert wasteland, all those years in a fake environment.” He admitted to deep depression. A few weeks later, on 5 January 1999, Hopkins announced his separation from Jenni, his wife for the past 24 years. They decided to be amiable apart and Hopkins returned to California to start a new life, decorating and landscaping a home in Pacific Palisades. He remarked that he had been seduced by California on his first visit in 1974.
On 9 February 2001, Hannibal was released, a sequel of his most chilling role.
At age 65, on 1 March 2003 in Malibu, California, Hopkins married 46-year-old antiques dealer, Stella Arroyave, in a private ceremony attended by friends and family. This is his third marriage.
Hopkins won the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his performance in The Father (2020), making it his fourth BAFTA and his third for Best Actor. In 2021, he also won a second Academy Award for Best Actor for his role, becoming the oldest person to win an award in that category.
Link to Wikipedia biography