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Anthony Hopkins

Anthony Hopkins Quotes

Actor

Anthony Hopkins is a renowned British actor, born on December 31, 1937, in Wales. Known for his exceptional acting skills and versatile character portrayals, Hopkins has been nominated for multiple Academy Awards and won the Best Actor for 'The Silence of the Lambs' in 1993.

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All Hopkins Actors Ifs Thinking Knows People Acting Wells Way I Can

Famous Anthony Hopkins Quotes

“The art of acting is not to act. Once you show them more, what you show them, in fact is bad acting.”

Art Facts Shows Acting Bad Acting

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“The knighthood was a tremendous honour, I don't dismiss it. But I feel embarrassed by the flowery, theatrical stuff that goes with being an actor.”

Feels Actors Stuff Honour Embarrassed Theatrical Knighthood

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“Well, everyone likes movies when they're a little kid.”

Wells Littles Kids Likes Little Kid Hopkins

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“What I do is just go over and over and over my lines and learn the script so well that I can just be easy and relaxed. That's the way I always work.”

Way Wells I Can Easy Lines Scripts Relaxed

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“In the theatre, people talk. Talk, talk until the cows come home about journeys of discovery and about what Hazlitt thought of a line of Shakespeare. I can't stand it.”

People I Can Home Lines Journey Discovery Theatre Coming Home Cows Hopkins

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I don't have people following me around, like bodyguards. I don't know how people live like that. Maybe the young movie stars have to live like that, I don't know. But it seems a little crazy to me. I don't think you need all that stuff.”

People Thinking Knows Needs Littles Seems Young Actors Stars Stuff Know How Crazy Following Movie Movie Star Bodyguard

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“If you do things, whether it's acting or music or painting, do it without fear - that's my philosophy. Because nobody can arrest you and put you in jail if you paint badly, so there's nothing to lose.”

Ifs Philosophy Loses Acting Painting Paint Jail Nothing To Lose

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“Acting is just a process of relaxation, actually. Knowing the text so well and trusting that the instinct and the subconscious mind, whatever you want to call it, is going to take over.”

Want Mind Wells Process Acting Knowing Instinct Subconscious Relaxation Subconscious Mind

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“Actors I admire? Ed Harris, or course, I think he's terrific; because I know he always had to fight being what he looked like a lot, but I think he's a terrific actor.”

Thinking Knows Fighting Courses Actors Admire Terrific

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“For me, time is the greatest mystery of all. The fact is that we're dreaming all the time. That's what really gets me. We have a fathomless lake of unconsciousness just beneath our skulls.”

Facts Dream Mystery Lakes Skulls Unconsciousness Hopkins

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I always had a knack for improvisation. I can write down the notes I play, but never really had a proper academic musical background. I suppose I'm blessed and cursed by the fact I have that freedom.”

Writing I Can Play Facts Blessed Notes Musical Backgrounds Academic Improvisation Cursed Knack Hopkins

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I can't stand directors who try to micro-manage everything. When it happens these days I just walk off set, saying if they don't like the way I'm doing it they can get someone else.”

Ifs Way Trying I Can Happens Walks Directors Manage These Days

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I come from - I came from Wales, and it's a strong, butch society. We were in the war and all that. People didn't waste time feeling sorry for themselves. You had to get on with it. So my credo is get on with it. I don't waste time being soft. I'm not cold, but I don't like being, wasting my time with - life's too short.”

People War Feelings Strong Cold Waste Sorry My Time Wasting Time Too Short Wales Wasting My Time Life's Too Short Feeling Sorry Don't Waste Time Credo

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I couldn't say I ever dreamt of becoming a composer, a pianist, or anything else for that matter. I have the kind of brain where nothing is set in stone.”

Kind Matter Brain Becoming Stones Composer Pianist Hopkins

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I don't know why they gave me a knighthood - though it's very nice of them - but I only ever use the title in the U.S. The Americans insist on it and get offended if I don't.”

Ifs Knows Use Nice Titles Offended Very Nice Knighthood

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I just wanted to be a composer; I became an actor by default, really. I got a scholarship to a college of music and drama, hoping to take a scholarship in music. But I ended up as an acting student, so I've stuck with that for the last 50-odd years.”

Years Wanted Lasts Actors Acting Students College Drama Stuck Odd Composer Scholarship Default

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I know that some actors and directors like to have intensity on set. I don't, particularly. Certainly, if they want that, that's fine, but I can't work like that.”

Ifs Knows Want I Can Actors Fine Directors Intensity

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I remember coming to New York, in 1974 to do a play here called Equis. And I remember the first morning getting up and walking around the streets and I thought, "I'm home." I felt really at peace here.”

Firsts Play Home Remember Felt Morning Streets New York Walking

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I spent two years in the military service, then I trudged around in repertory for quite a while. I somehow wound up at the National Theatre, though, and then I was definitely on my way.”

Way Years Two Military Theatre Wounds My Way Two Years Military Service

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I think the first British actor who really worked well in cinema was Albert Finney. He was a back-street Marlon Brando. He brought a great wittiness and power to the screen. The best actor we've had.”

Thinking Firsts Wells Actors Streets British Screens Cinema Brando

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I tried acting, liked it, and stuck with it. I saw it as the way I would keep that promise to myself of getting back at those who had made my school life a misery.”

Way Made School Acting Saws Promise Misery Stuck Hopkins School Life

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I was lousy in school. Real screwed-up. A moron. I was antisocial and didn't bother with the other kids. A really bad student. I didn't have any brains. I didn't know what I was doing there. That's why I became an actor.”

Knows Real Kids School Actors Brain Students Bother Moron Screwed Up Hopkins Antisocial

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I wouldn't use the word 'scared' for my role as Hitchcock, but it was my most insecure. Taking on such a formidable, giant personality such as Hitchcock; he was one of the great geniuses of world cinema. Sheer genius.”

World Use Roles Personality Genius Scared Cinema Giants Sheer Insecure Formidable Hitchcock

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I'm most suspicious of scripts that have a lot of stage direction at the top of the page sunrise over the desert and masses of a whole essay before you get to the dialogue.”

Whole Stage Mass Pages Scripts Dialogue Desert Sunrise Essays Suspicious Hopkins Stage Directions

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I've felt like an outsider all my life. It comes from my mother, who always felt like an outsider in my father's family. She was a powerful woman, and she motivated my father.”

Mother Father Felt Powerful Motivated Outsiders Powerful Women

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I've had no contact with my daughter for years. That's her choice. Anyway, you move on. If people don't want to bother with me, fine. You know, God bless them, and move on.”

People Ifs Knows Want Years Moving Choices Fine Daughter Contact Bother My Daughter Bless Knowing God God Bless

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“If I spent all my time criticising myself, I wouldn't be able to function. There are actors who theorise till the cows come home. I haven't the patience for them. It's maybe shallow, but that's why I'll never be part of the acting set.”

Ifs Home Able Actors Acting Havens Function My Time Coming Home Cows Shallow

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“It's such a pleasant surprise when you come on set and you find someone in charge like Ken Branagh or James Ivory. You know that you're going to do a day's work and at the end of it, it's going to be good.”

Knows Ends Surprise Be Good Pleasant Ivory Pleasant Surprises

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“My father wasn't a cruel man. And I loved him. But he was a pretty tough character. His own father was even tougher - one of those Victorians, hard as iron - but my dad was tough enough.”

Men Hard Enough Character Father Dad Tough My Dad Iron

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“We're all caught up in circumstances, and we're all good and evil. When you're really hungry, for instance, you'll do anything to survive. I think the most evil thing - well, maybe that's too strong - but certainly a very evil thing is judgment, the sin of ignorance.”

Thinking Wells Evil Strong Sin Ignorance Circumstances Judgment Caught Hungry Instance Good And Evil Caught Up Evil Things

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“Years ago I met Richard Burton in Port Talbot, my home town, and afterwards he passed in his car with his wife, and I thought, 'I want to get out and become like him'. Not because of Wales, because I love Wales, but because I was so limited as a child at school and so bereft and lonely, and I thought becoming an actor would do that.”

Want Years Children Home School Actors Wife Car Becoming Mets Years Ago Lonely Towns Port Wales Hopkins Bereft Home Town

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“Certainty is the enemy of mankind. If you're certain about everything, you have the Inquisition, you have Nazis and you have - that certainty is something to be guarded about.”

Ifs Certain Enemy Mankind Certainty Nazi Guarded Inquisition

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I think doubt is a very healthy way to live.”

Thinking Way Doubt Healthy Way To Live

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“When I was a young guy, I knew everything. Now I know very little. I know less and less as the time goes on.”

Knows Littles Young Guy Goes On Time Goes On Young Guys

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I'm having a great life. And I'm 73 and they still phone me up and ask me to do a job here and there.”

Stills Jobs Asks Phones Ask Me Here And There

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I never cling on to hope or certainty. They're the enemies of peace.”

Enemy Certainty

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“Keep low expectations and life gets pretty good.”

Lows Expectations Low Expectations

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“If you have high expectations you're going to get resentments and all kinds of tension.”

Ifs Kind Expectations All Kinds Tension Resentment High Expectations

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“Things have changed so much now. Everything is downloaded onto computers. I'm not a computer-savvy guy, but with downloading the movie industry has changed.”

Guy Changed Industry Computer Savvy Things Have Changed Movie Industry

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I don't know what I believe.”

Knows Believe I Believe

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“There's a thing that if you - somebody in faith is always troubled by doubt, and somebody by doubt is always wanted by faith. So it's a kind of paradox.”

Ifs Kind Wanted Doubt Paradox

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I love to read, and so I've been reading everything I can, not intensely, but I love to read so I read "Origin of Species" by Darwin and I can't make head or tail of E=MC squared by Einstein, but I try to baffle my way through that.”

Way Trying I Can Reading Species My Way Tails Can Not Love To Read Origin Of Species Heads Or Tails

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“My life has been a kind of mystery to me. By all my logical, linear thinking I started out in school as a little boy, I didn't have a clue about anything. What they were talking about in school, couldn't play sports, couldn't learn, and I was bottom of the class.”

Thinking Kind Littles Has Beens Play School Sports Talking Class Boys Mystery Bottom Logical Clue Little Boys Linear

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I found a way into the acting business because I thought, well, it beats working for a living, and so that's what I do. But I still feel like a bit of a stranger in it all. I've never really belonged anywhere.”

Way Feels Wells Stills Found Bits Acting Beats Stranger Working For A Living

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I was born in the same town as Richard Burton, the actor, and I saw him, he used to come - he and his wife drove by in the car in my father's shop and Burton would come home from Hollywood and ask him for his autograph, and I thought, I want to be like him. And that's all I said to myself, I want to be like that. I want to get out of this environment of my own empty mind.”

Want Mind Said Home Used Actors Asks Father Born My Own Environment Saws Wife Car Empty Hollywood Towns Shops Coming Home Autographs Empty Mind

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I visualized a lot of things happening to me, because I was a lonely kid because I didn't understand anything about school.”

Kids School Happenings Lonely Things Happen

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I wanted to be a musician but I didn't have the talent for it, so I decided I wanted to be famous, so I became an actor.”

Wanted Actors Talent Musician Decided

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“I have no education, I have no academic background in painting or in music, but I write music and I compose music and I write and I sell paintings, and my rule is, well, they can't arrest me.”

Writing Wells Painting Sells Backgrounds Academic

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“As a Welshman that can't sing, I never feel more proud to be Welsh than when I hear the Treorchy Male Choir - the Master Choir of them all. If I could sing I would apply for membership myself.”

Ifs Feels Masters Proud Males If I Could Choir Membership Welsh

Author:Anthony Hopkins

“By giving up 'the need' and 'the want', things begin to happen for you”

Want Needs Giving Happens Giving Up

Author:Anthony Hopkins

About the Author

Born: December 31, 1937
Known for: Actor
Quotes: 240

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