With Anthony Hopkins's screen presence, you know, the way he fills the screen with that rich voice, those piercing eyes, the boar of a physique, you think the guy is ten feet tall. In fact it comes as a surprise when you realise that he is actually around 5ft 7 (or 8 if it's the official tape measure). But that is the genius of the guy. That is what screen acting is all about. Holding the camera until it sees no-one but you. Hopkins can act any of today's so-called stars off the screen until they become but a footnote to the scene in question.

He's been around for what like seems forever but he has got better as he's got older. Yes, the Oscar-winning Hannibal Lecter performance in the 1991 SIlence of the Lambs is probaly the most showy or flashy but for me the hurt of unasked for and therefore unanswered love in the 1993 Remains of the Day is painful to watch. Breathtakingly outstanding.

Cut from Welsh stone (no matter what his citizenship is), he's just below Richard Walter Jenkins (you might know him as Richard Burton) in terms of star quality but to be mentioned in the same sentence as the great man is no mean achievement. And he loves Tommy Cooper! What a man!

Size matters? Not when your Sir Anthony Hopkins. He towers above the actors of today like a giant over pygmies. He is now the Empire State Building of the acting profession while the rest live in bungalows.

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Born at 77, Wern Road, Margam, near Port Talbot, South Wales.

Philip Anthony Hopkins was the son of Muriel (b. Phillips, a relative of the poet William Butler Yeats) and Richard Arthur, a baker.



He studied drama in Wales and London, made his stage debut in 1960, and was long a member of the British National Theatre. A brilliant and versatile performer, he has acted in more than 25 plays, 1000 films, and numerous television dramas. Although he has performed an enormous variety of roles, Hopkins is especially adept at portraying eccentric characters, from the merely odd to the truly monstrous. Plays in which he has appeared include Equus, Old Times, Macbeth, Pravda (1985), and King Lear (1986).

Since his first film, The Lion in Winter (1968), he has appeared in Magic (1978), The Elephant Man (1980), Remains of the Day (1993), and Nixon (1995), among others. He won an Academy Award and achieved Hollywood stardom for his chilling portrayal of the murderous Dr. Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).

Hopkins was knighted in 1993.