Anthony Hopkins's Real Name: Philip Anthony Hopkins

Quick answer: Anthony Hopkins was born Philip Anthony Hopkins on December 31, 1937, in Port Talbot, Wales, and has been Sir Anthony Hopkins since his 1993 knighthood. He won Academy Awards for playing Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and for The Father (2020) (Britannica; Library of Congress).

Real name and early life

Britannica gives his name in full as "Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins." The Library of Congress name authority files him as "Hopkins, Anthony, 1937-" and keeps the cross-reference "Hopkins, Philip Anthony, 1937-." One LOC citation reads "Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, CBE; b. Dec. 31, 1937, Margam, Port Talbot, Glamorgan, Wales." It adds that he became a U.S. citizen on April 12, 2000. Another reference work cited by LOC reverses the order to "Anthony Philip Hopkins," but Britannica and LOC's own record use Philip Anthony.

According to Britannica, Hopkins first hoped to be a concert pianist. He began acting at 18 in a YMCA drama club and won a scholarship to the Cardiff College of Music and Drama. After two years in the Royal Artillery, he made his professional debut in 1960 and graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1963 as a silver medalist.

Career highlights

Laurence Olivier took Hopkins into the National Theatre in 1965, where he understudied Olivier. Critics soon called him the "new Olivier." He played Richard the Lionheart in The Lion in Winter (1968), and in 1974 he starred on Broadway in the original production of Equus. Britannica says alcoholism held back his career until 1975, when he resolved to change. He later said, "It was only after I put my demons behind me that I was able to fully enjoy acting."

His films include The Elephant Man (1980) and The Bounty (1984), and he won Emmys for The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case and The Bunker. His defining role was serial killer Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs, which won him the best actor Oscar; he played Lecter again in Hannibal and Red Dragon. Nominations followed for The Remains of the Day, Nixon, and Amistad.

He played Odin in the Thor films, Alfred Hitchcock in Hitchcock (2012), and Pope Benedict XVI in The Two Popes (2019), which brought his fifth Oscar nomination. The Father (2020), in which he played a man with dementia, won him a second Academy Award. He also wrote and directed August (1996) and Slipstream (2007) and appeared in HBO's Westworld.

He was made a CBE in 1987 and knighted in 1993.

Name notes for searchers

Anthony is his middle name and Philip his first. He has always been credited as Anthony Hopkins. Since 1993 he has been styled Sir Anthony Hopkins, which is why "Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins" appears in reference works.