His favorite horror film is Rosemary's Baby (1968).
His Oscar-winning performance as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) was ranked #1 on the American Film Institute's Villains list in its compilation of the 100 Years of The Greatest Screen Heroes and Villains.
His performance as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) is ranked #15 on Premiere Magazine's 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time.
In Invercargill, New Zealand, there is a drama school named after him--The Anthony Hopkins School of Dramatic Arts. He was present for its opening, as he was in Invercargill filming scenes for the The World's Fastest Indian (2005) at the time.
Into the 1991 restoration of Spartacus (1960), scenes were reintroduced which had been cut from the picture's 1967 reissue. One such segment has Laurence Olivier, in the role of Marcus Crassus, attempting to seduce the slave Antoninus (played by Tony Curtis). But the original soundtrack for this segment had become lost. And so, Olivier having died in 1989, Anthony Hopkins imitated the voice of Olivier (whom Hopkins had understudied at the Old Vic) for the scene's re-created soundtrack. (The surviving Tony Curtis presumably supplied his own voice.)
Is a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), Stratford Upon Avon, England, where he spent three seasons after graduating from RADA.
Is proud of his improvisational touches as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) such as: the unnerving effect on Jodie Foster when he mocked her character's West Virginia accent; the distorion of the word "chianti" and the vile slurping sound he makes after he describes eating the "census-taker." Hopkins also notes that Hannibal never blinked his eyes when he spoke.
Is related to the poet William Butler Yeats on his mother's side of the family.
Likes to be called "Tony."
Often compared with fellow Welshman Richard Burton.
One of his greatest pleasures in past years on his frequent visits to the USA was to get in a car and drive across the country, enjoying its immensity as well as his own anonymity.
Parents: Muriel Anne Yeats (b.1913) and Richard Arthur Hopkins (died in 1981).
Piano virtuoso.
Quit smoking cigarettes using the Allen Carr method.
Ranked #12 on Tropopkin's Top 25 Most Intriguing People [Issue #100]
Reads each script 250 times out loud before filming, and to exercise his memory, memorizes one new poem a week.
Received his Academy Award for The Silence of the Lambs (1991) 11 years to the day of his father's death.
Resides in Santa Monica, California.
Served in the British National Service as a Royal Artillery man and for a while was only known as "Gunner Hopkins".
The Anthony Hopkins Theatre at the Theatre Clwyd Cymru in Mold, North Wales, UK was named in his honour.