Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins CBE (born 31 December 1937) is a Welsh actor, director, and film producer. He 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.
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 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 was nominated for four Academy Awards for the films The Remains of the Day (1993), Nixon (1995), Amistad (1997) and The Two Popes (2019). Hopkins won a fourth BAFTA Award and a second Academy Award for Best Actor for The Father, becoming the oldest winner of an acting Oscar 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.
