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Anthony Hopkins [1937-0] Welsh

Rank: 101
Actor

Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, CBE, is a Welsh actor of film, stage, and television. After graduating from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in 1957, he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and was then spotted by Laurence Olivier who invited him to join the Royal National Theatre.

Life, Religion, Business, Nature, Car, Chance, Dad, Death, Dreams, Famous, Freedom, God, Great, Happiness, Health, Home, Humor, Patience, Peace, Society, Trust, War, Wisdom

Quote	Tags	Rank
My philosophy is it's none of my business what people say of me and think of me. I am what I am, and I do what I do. I expect nothing and accept everything. And it makes life so much easier.	Business, Life	101
Relish everything that's inside of you, the imperfections, the darkness, the richness and light and everything. And that makes for a full life.	Life	102
I worked with Lawrence Olivier some years ago. He was a great mentor.	Great	103
We are dying from overthinking. We are slowly killing ourselves by thinking about everything. Think. Think. Think. You can never trust the human mind anyway. It's a death trap.	Death, Trust	104
I have a punishing workout regimen. Every day I do 3 minutes on a treadmill, then I lie down, drink a glass of vodka and smoke a cigarette.		105
Life's too short to deal with other people's insecurities.		106
We all dream. We dream vividly, depending on our nature. Our existence is beyond our explanation, whether we believe in God or we have religion or we're atheist.	God, Nature, Religion	107
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.		108
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.	Society, War	109
I think the healthy way to live is to make friends with the beast inside oneself, and that means not the beast but the shadow. The dark side of one's nature. Have fun with it and you know, is to accept everything about ourselves.	Health, Nature	110
I don't believe in nepotism. I don't much like the idea of parents who interfere.		111
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.	Freedom	112
Why love if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore; only the life I have lived. The pain now is part of the happiness then.	Happiness	113
I would like to go back to Wales. I'm obsessed with my childhood and at least three times a week dream I am back there.		114
I love life because what more is there?	Life	115
My philosophy is: It's none of my business what people say of me and think of me.	Business	116
I have dual citizenship; it just so happens I live in America. I would like to go back to Wales. I'm obsessed with my childhood, and at least three times a week dream I am back there.		117
I'm devious, cruel, cunning and addictive.		118
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.		119
Our existence is beyond our explanation, whether we believe in God or we have religion or we're atheist. Our existence is beyond our understanding. No one has an answer.	Religion	120
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.		121
Beware the tyranny of the weak. They just suck you dry.		122
I'm a pretty tough guy, you know. I'm a pretty hard man. I've got a lot of compassion, but I don't waste time with people.		123
I'm interested in the dream and subconscious mind, the peculiar dream-like quality of our lives, sometime nightmare quality of our lives.		124
The Welsh people have a talent for acting that one does not find in the English. The English lack heart.		125
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.	Car, Home	126
I am able to play monsters well. I understand monsters. I understand madmen.		201
I'm the slowest driver in the world.		202
I'm married. My wife, Stella - a beautiful woman. She's brought a lot of peace to my life, a lot of wisdom.	Peace, Wisdom	203
I am not very good with relationships. With anyone. I can't be locked up with anyone for too long.		204
I do admire Judi Dench and Sir Ian McKellen, but I'm a philistine. I like the good life too much; I'm not good at going on stage night after night and on wet Wednesday afternoons.		205
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.		206
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.	Patience	207
I think all those actors from that generation, like Bogart - they were wonderful actors. They didn't act. They just came on and they did it, and the characters were wonderful.		208
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.		209
The art of acting is not to act. Once you show them more, what you show them, in fact is bad acting.		210
The magical, supernatural force that is with us every second is time. We can't even comprehend it. It's such an illusion, it's such a strange thing.		211
I think a certain amount of stress in life is good. The stress of just working, which takes effort - I think it keeps you going.		212
I hope I would not be so arrogant as to doubt anyone's religion or belief.	Religion	213
Once you begin to fall off the track and believe you breathe different air to everyone else, you're doomed; you're finished.		214
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.		215
And I love a scary movie. It makes your toes curl and it's not you going through it.		216
I don't know what acting is, but I enjoy it.		217
It was a challenge, to work with Oliver Stone.		218
My life turned out to be beyond my greatest dreams.	Dreams	219
I'm fascinated by the fact that we can't grasp anything about time.		220
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.		221
I don't have many friends; I'm very much a loner. As a child I was very isolated, and I've never been really close to anyone.		222
I am a bit of a solitude person - a solitary personality. I like being on my own. I don't have any major friendships or relationships with people.		223
I don't like freeloaders; I don't like people who are negative.		224
My father was grounded, a very meat-and-potatoes man. He was a baker.	Dad	225
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.		226
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.		301
I know that the arts are important. I'm not denying that, but I can't associate myself with all the claptrap that goes on around it.		302
I like the good life too much, I'm not good at going on stage night after night and on wet Wednesday afternoons.		303
I love roller coasters. I don't get a chance often, but I've gone to Magic Mountain and gone on the rides. I love roller coasters.	Chance	304
I never make conscious decisions.		305
I'm one of the slowest drivers on the road. I mosey along. If you're doing anything too fast, including living life too fast, that creates sudden death. If I have to be somewhere on time, I make sure I leave early enough.		306
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.		307
I like to take it easy.		308
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.		309
People forget that Mozart wrote for commissions. There's a thing in psychology where they think if it's popular, it can't be serious.		310
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.		311
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.		312
I was called 'Dumbo,' like the elephant, as a child because I couldn't understand things at school.		313
My weak spot is laziness. Oh, I have a lot of weak spots: cookies, croissants.		314
I tend to get bored quickly, which means I must be boring.		315
I have no interest in Shakespeare and all that British nonsense... I just wanted to get famous and all the rest is hogwash.	Famous	316
I worked with Steven Spielberg on Amistad... he seemed so very secure in himself that he let me do things.		317
I've got a great sense of humor.	Humor	318
This industry has been really good to me. It's been a great life. I'm not through yet. I'm ready when you are, Mr. DeMille.		319
I've been composing music all my life and if I'd been clever enough at school I would like to have gone to music college.		320
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.		321
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.		322
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.		323
We're always looking over our shoulders, 'what they will think, what the press will think, what will this one - am I making the right career move?' When you're young you have to do all that to survive, I suppose.		324
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.		325
I don't have a vast longing for the stage.		326
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.		401
I learn poetry, learn text, and that really keeps you alive.		402
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.		403
I worked at the Steel Company Of Wales when I was 17. My job was to supply tools to the guys working the blast furnaces.		404
A conductor can't be too arrogant with an orchestra and try to impose himself too much.		405
I've got no need to prove to myself that I can do Shakespeare. I've done it.		406
Every time I try to retire, or even think of retiring from acting, my agent comes up with a script.		407
I came here in 1974 to do a play, and then I went to L.A. I really like living in America. I feel more at home here than anywhere else.		408
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.		409
I have dual citizenship, it just so happens I live in America.		410
I'm always cast in these strange men... that's not me, really.		411
Oh yes. I'm an actor, so I just learn my lines, and show up and do it. I gave it a little bit of thought.		412
Richard Burton came from the same town as me, so I thought I'd follow my nose, and follow my luck. I think I've been very lucky.		413
Well, everyone likes movies when they're a little kid.		414
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.		415
I'm not a health freak. I just work out every day.		416
I was bullied as a boy - lots of kids are, but hopefully most of us get on with our lives and grow up.		417
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.		418
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.		419
Jonathan Demme is a very sharp editor of his movies.		420
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.		421
People ask, 'Should I call you Sir Hopkins?' But I say, 'No. Call me Tony,' because it's too much of a lift-up.		422
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.		423
We have a Boesendorfer piano that I play every day. It keeps my brain and my fingers active.		424

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