Anthony Hopkins once named the most “exciting and dangerous” actor he has ever worked with
When talking about the greatest actors ever to grace the silver screen, the British actor Anthony Hopkins has to be part of the conversation, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Meryl Streep, Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando, Cate Blanchett and Robert De Niro. Starring in such classic movies as Silence of the Lambs, Nixon and The Remains of the Day, Hopkins is a British thespian who reminds audiences of just how powerful acting can be.
Rising to fame in the 1970s, when he worked on Richard Attenborough’s celebrated war flick A Bridge Too Far and the largely underrated horror flick Magic by the same filmmaker, Hopkins announced himself as a potent force. Such would only be confirmed in the following decades when he would thrive in the industry thanks to roles in David Lynch’s Elephant Man and Jonathan Demme’s Silence of the Lambs, with the latter earning him his very first Oscar nomination and subsequent win.
Whilst he had worked for many years prior to the 1990s, it was in this decade that he would be elevated to international fame, earning three Oscar nominations for The Remains of the Day, Nixon and Steven Spielberg’s Amistad throughout the following six years. Among rising commercial stars like Jim Carrey, Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp, Hopkins acted as a constant reminder of the high level of performance required from the very best actors.
After all, Hopkins had learned his craft from the very best actors, having previously collaborated with Katharine Hepburn, Laurence Olivier and Peter O’Toole, having grand words of praise for the eight-time Academy Award nominee.
He met the performer during his first movie, 1968’s The Lion in Winter, a movie that told the story of King Henry II’s three sons who each vie for a position to succeed their father. Admitting that he was “a young, brash, nervous actor” in a 1994 interview with Playboy, Hopkins added, revealing some kind words of wisdom his co-star Hepburn gave him at the time: “She said, ‘You don’t need to do anything. You’ll understand, just relax’”.
O’Toole was the other co-star of the Oscar-winning movie, with Hopkins revealing that he had never met him before the production but found his acting persona intimidating. “He was electrifying,” Hopkins recalled, “The most exciting and dangerous actor I’ve ever worked with. We had some wild times together”.
“There were fights,” he added when pressed about such “wild times” before going off into a bizarre explanation of a near-fist-fight the pair shared.
“O’Toole and I, both smashed, were ready to beat each other up,” he started, “He was mad. He drank as much as I did and probably more, and he had that kind of yearning zest for life. He hated the Welsh…He said, ‘You’re like that other Welsh bastard, Richard Burton. You’re a fucking misfit’…I suddenly got out of my chair and leaned across the table and said, ‘You bastard, come outside.’ I meant it, I was going to deck him. I didn’t care”.
Take a look at Hopkins and O’Toole star alongside each other in the trailer for The Lion in Winter below.
