Welsh born actor, Anthony Hopkins is one of the most respected actors in the world. After training at the prestigious RADA drama school in London, he had a distinctive stage career but wanted to break into films. Anthony Hopkins movies usually do well at the box office and directors are keen to work with him. His movie breakthrough came when he was cast as King Richard I in The Lion in Winter, starring Peter O'Toole as Henry II and Katherine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine.

Hopkins has had a successful film career, working in the UK and in Hollywood. He took out American citizenship and American audiences like him as much as the British do. He has portrayed a number of characters from Victorian England, including the real life surgeon Sir Frederick Treves in The Elephant Man. This David Lynch directed film from 1980, starred John Hurt as Merrick, the man whose appearance caused such a stir. Treves first comes across him in a freak circus show and rescues him. Hopkins gives a sensitive performance as the man who treats the Elephant Man as a friend and equal.

This Anthony Hopkins movie also featured Anne Bancroft and John Gielgud.The 1990s was a productive decade for the actor and he made what would become his most famous role. The Silence of the Lambs, directed by Jonathan Demme, gave him his strongest challenge as he played the cannibalistic psychopath Hannibal Lecter. His performance won him the Academy Award for Best Actor. His scenes with Jodie Foster as FBI agent Clarice Starling were compelling. Hopkins went on to play the same character on two other occasions, in Hannibal and in Red Dragon. Lecter is the enduring character of all the Anthony Hopkins movies.

In contrast, there followed a series of costume dramas. Howard's End was a Merchant Ivory production in which he played Henry Wilcox. The story is about the class structure of Victorian times and also starred Helena Bonham Carter, Emma Thompson and Vanessa Redgrave. Another Merchant Ivory production cast Hopkins in The Remains of the Day. He played a butler and he was teamed with Emma Thompson once again along with Christopher Reeve.

Richard Attenborough directed Hopkins in the romantic Shadowlands. Set in the 1930s, he played the writer C.S Lewis, author of the Narnia stories. One of the more unusual Anthony Hopkins movies was the western, Legends of the Fall. Hopkins was very convincing as Colonel Ludlow, father to characters played by Brad Pitt and Aidan Quinn. Hopkins was recently honored with a Golden Globe Lifetime Achievement Award.