Watch Anthony Hopkins deliver an impression of ‘Thing’ from the Addams Family
Sir Anthony Hopkins recently gave another excellent performance, this time as Thing from the Addams Family, which was featured in the hit Netflix series Wednesday. In a video shared with his 3.9 million Instagram followers, the 84-year-old actor delivered his unflinching impression.
Wednesday, the new Netflix series experienced the second-biggest streaming week of all time, becoming the second highest-streamed English show on the platform. Actor Catherine Zeta-Jones, who plays matriarch Morticia Addams, shared her adoration for Hopkins’ impression of the severed hand. The video showed his hand, covered in stitch makeup to replicate the Thing, ‘walking’ over a model of some sort, with The Addams Family’s original theme song playing in the background.
The actor then showed off his piano skills in character, playing a swift tune before waving goodbye.
Hopkins captioned the post, writing: “Happy Wednesday THING happens when an actor has free time on his hands”. Zeta-Jones, who starred alongside Hopkins in The Mask of Zorro, commented: “Haha. I love you so Tony.”
The Thing has been a member of The Addams Family since 1954 when he first appeared in Charles Addams’ comic strip, first created in 1938. The severed hand was originally portrayed by Ted Cassidy, the 6-foot-9-inch actor who also played the massive butler Lurch in the original 1964 Addams Family show.
In Netflix’s version of the Addams family, Thing is played by professional magician Victor Dorobantu. The Netflix behind-the-scenes video revealed Dorobantu had never acted before the show. Visual effects supervisor Tom Turnbull shared (via Daily Mail): “He’s never been an actor. So we brought him in, and we started doing rehearsals with him to see what he could do and to show him what worked with a walk and what didn’t work with a walk, and that first scene he really kinda nailed”.
Wednesday has received praise from audiences which has come as a surprise to composer Danny Elfman, who worked on the show’s score. “I thought Wednesday would be, like Batman, I thought it would be a little cult thing,” Elfman shared.
Hopkins will also give another terrific The Son, directed by Florian Zeller, and has already stirred talk in the Academy. The film is due for release on Friday, January 20th, 2023.
Check out Hopkins’s impression below.
