Anthony Hopkins on “the best acting I’ve ever seen”
It’s fair to say that, on several occasions, Anthony Hopkins has proven himself to be one of the great actors of all time. The two-time Academy Award winner is with ease one of the all-time icons of British cinema, though his impact is so vast that he has also become widely cherished in the United States.
The list of Hopkins’ achievements in the cinematic medium is simply astonishing, and some of his best performances include The Elephant Man, The Silence of the Lambs, The Father, Nixon and The Two Popes. The Welsh actor is equally as proficient on the stage, particularly in the early part of his career, during which he spent time at the Royal National Theatre after being discovered by Laurence Olivier.
While Hopkins has indeed drawn acclaim with most of his efforts on screen and on the stage, the actor himself has never shied away from offering his admiration where he feels it is most due. In 2013, Hopkins named the greatest acting he had ever seen, which came not from a Tony or Academy Award-winning performance but a TV effort from none other than Bryan Cranston.
Hopkins might have been impressed with Cranston’s turn as America’s dad in Malcolm in the Middle, but he was even more blown away by the actor’s eternally memorable performance in the crime drama series Breaking Bad, as per an email he sent that was later published online by The Guardian.
In Hopkins’ letter to Cranston, he claimed that he had just finished a “marathon” of watching Breaking Bad, which saw Cranston play Walter White, a terminally ill chemistry teacher who starts making and selling crystal meth with the help of one of his former students in order to pay for his treatment and secure the finances of his family for after he dies.
Hopkins said that he found the entirety of Breaking Bad to be truly “addictive viewing”. The actor wrote to his fellow star, “I have never watched anything like it. Brilliant! Your performance as Walter White was the best acting I have seen – ever. “This work of yours is spectacular – absolutely stunning.”
Beyond Cranston’s performance as Walter White, what impressed Hopkins the most was “the sheer power of everyone in the entire production” of the show. “Every department managed to keep the discipline and control from beginning to the end is awesome,” Hopkins noted. “From what started as a black comedy descended into a labyrinth of blood, destruction and hell. It was like a great Jacobean, Shakespearian or Greek Tragedy.”
The likes of Aaron Paul, Bob Odenkirk and Anna Gunn all drew praise from Hopkins, too, who he said all gave “master classes of performance”. The kind of efforts from across the board were described as “rare” by the Silence of the Lambs actor, who continued to gush over his impression of the iconic TV show.
He signed off his email to Cranston by noting, “It restores confidence. You and all the cast are the best actors I’ve ever seen. That may sound like a good lung full of smoke blowing. But it is not. It’s almost midnight out here in Malibu, and I felt compelled to write this email. Congratulations and my deepest respect. You are truly a great, great actor.”
