“I think he is”: Anthony Hopkins names cinema’s greatest living actor and what makes them the best
Many people would point to Anthony Hopkins as cinema’s greatest living actor, and even if you don’t think that he is, he should still be lurking somewhere around the top end of the discussion.
After all, he’s been turning in standout performances for six decades, and his status as the oldest winner of an acting Oscar in the history of Academy Awards makes it patently clear that his talents haven’t dimmed with age, even if he does phone it in a lot more than he used to.
Honestly, though, he’s allowed to. While Hopkins offers frequent reminders of his brilliance in films like The Two Popes, The Father, and Freud’s Last Session, the paycheque gigs have grown increasingly frequent in recent years, but you can’t expect someone in their late 80s who loves to work to turn down so many lucrative offers for so many tedious genre flicks.
Obviously, since he’s always hated actors and he abhors the machinations of Hollywood, Hopkins would never consider himself one of the living greats. He is, and you’d struggle to find someone who’d be able to state the case against it, but that self-loathing he’s never been able to shake guarantees that he wouldn’t make himself part of the conversation.
From his perspective, then, who is the most gifted thespian who’s still alive and kicking? There are plenty to choose from, and when he was asked who he thinks is the greatest actor of all time, whether they’re above or below ground, the first name to come to mind was Robert De Niro.
When pressed further as to whether or not the two-time Oscar winner could definitively be called the industry’s best living thespian, Hopkins didn’t budge. “I think he is, I think he is,” he repeated. “I think he’s one of the great, great ones.” Not only that, but he handily explained why De Niro deserves the accolade.
“What makes a great actor?” he posed. “It’s very difficult to say. I think it’s a commitment of force, great commitment.” However, distilling it down to his essence, Hopkins settled on the one word that he’d use to sum up what separates a merely good actor from one of the greats: power.
“Like De Niro, they have… It’s like they’re on their chariot, and they’ve got the reins there, and they wouldn’t let them go,” he opined. “They’ll follow the destiny of the work they’re doing to the limit.” That’s an awfully profound way of putting it, but he’s not wrong, and as far as commitment to the craft goes, few have ever dedicated themselves to a fuller extent than peak-era De Niro.
It’s been a long time since De Niro has existed in the ‘best in the business’ bracket, but he doesn’t need to anymore when his legacy speaks for itself. Is he cinema’s finest living actor? That’s entirely up to you, but Hopkins is adamant that he is, which is about as ringing as endorsements come.
