On Monday, March 30, 1992, it was a day when the great Welsh actor Anthony Hopkins was lucky when he climbed to the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion Theater in Los Angeles to receive his well-deserved award as best actor in a leading role for his role in the movie “The Silence of the Lambs.” (The Silence of the Lambs) 1991 production.
On that sunny spring day, "Tony" was reaping what he sowed 16 years, 3 months and one day ago, since he stopped drinking alcohol and started his journey to recover from alcoholism, reaps the result of a strong will that he stuck to insistently, more focus on his artistic project, and more Develop and refine his acting talent, to face a storm of applause and celebration while holding the small golden statue of the prestigious Academy Award, which will not be his last award from the Academy Awards.
Strong beginnings for a promising young man
From his theatrical beginnings, young Tony was one of the giants of English theater. Years after graduating from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, he was discovered by acting genius Laurence Olivier, who invited him to join the Royal National Theater in 1965.
In 1967, Anthony Hopkins starred in August Strindberg's play "The Dance of Death", replacing his teacher, Olivier, who suddenly developed appendicitis, to achieve a success comparable to the success of Olivier himself, who later expressed this in his memoirs "Confessions of an Actor".
In the following year, 1968, Hopkins achieved wide fame for his role as Richard the Lionheart in the movie "The Lion in Winter" and received his first nomination for the "BAFTA" award as Best Supporting Actor, to begin his success journey with the cinema, during which he continues his cinematic success along with the theatrical, but it is disrupted. In the first half of the seventies.
Back on track after getting lost
Under the weight of alcoholism, Hopkins' acting career faltered, and he was interrupted in performing supporting roles in British cinema, theater and television series, until he came in 1975, in which Anthony Hopkins, the young actor at the time (37 years), made a fundamental decision, to quit drinking, after he found himself in Arizona With no idea how he got there from Los Angeles, a long drunken commute drove him to join Alcoholics Anonymous to put his life back on track.
Hopkins returned more active to cinema, theater and television, but in the highest-watching works and with a larger audience, until he played a major role in the English film "The Elephant Man" directed by David Lynch, as one of the defining roles in his career, maintaining his theatrical path as one of the major English theater.
With gratitude, I celebrate 45 years of sobriety.
pic.twitter.com/fxzMRGlI4m
— Anthony Hopkins (@AnthonyHopkins) December 29, 2020
Back to Hollywood to grab the Oscars
In the 1980s, Hopkins decided to leave Hollywood forever, preferring to settle in Britain's theaters, but retracted his decision when he was offered the role of "Hannibal Lecter".
When director Jonathan Deem wanted to make “The Silence of the Lambs,” he needed a British actor for the role of cold-blooded serial killer Hannibal Lecter, who should be “a manipulative person, with a language and a way of speaking that captivates people and puts them in real trouble.” Hopkins won the role and was moving to America and returning to the theater London, author Thomas Harris was reportedly pleased with Hopkins' portrayal of the mad doctor.
Hopkins' Hollywood comeback was really successful, as he won the praise of critics, audience interaction, and the Academy Award for Best Actor for this film, to begin a new stage of stardom.
The following year, Hopkins, the son of a Welsh baker, was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in 1993, and 10 years later put his name on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, having also obtained American citizenship.
The second "Easy" Oscar
In an interview with the New York Times, Hopkins was asked about his role in the movie “The Father,” to reply, “It was an easy role.” Thus, the octogenarian Sheikh simply described his heavy role in the movie, which won him his second Oscar, and added that “because the script was well".
And it all got easier when Olivia Colman was chosen to play his daughter.
"When you watch Olivia, and you see her face wrinkled, tears welling up in her eyes, you say to yourself, 'I don't need to act,'" he explained.
Multiple talents
Old Tony, 84, doesn't need to pretend or repeat how difficult the role was, or how he performed mighty rituals to assume the role of an old man suffering from senile dementia. The script was as good as he described it, things were easy and life was quiet.
Hopkins lives a quiet life in his home in the "Pacific Palisades" neighborhood overlooking the coast, in Los Angeles, where he spent a few months during the home quarantine imposed due to the "Covid-19" virus. Symphonic composition before, changed his plastic experiences in drawing and photography.
And quietly, wisely, as befits an old man in his eighties, he celebrates his birthday on December 31 of each year, coinciding with the world's tumultuous celebrations of the beginning of a new year.