Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins

Sir Philip Anthony Hopkinsgdcgraphics [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

A man so many people have not heard of. A man with the gift to act out roles with perfection. The only man to play a psychotic cannibal with the name Hannibal Lector. Anthony Hopkins is a "Renaissance Man," and he deserves that title for various reasons.

Born Philip Anthony Hopkins on December 31,1937, Philip grew up wanting to be a pianist. All that changed one very day when he met Richard Burton. After meeting him, Philip fell in love with acting. He went on to enroll at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama. Graduating college, Hopkins went on to do his two years in the British army doing his national service. After those two years had passed, he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Starting with plays, Philip quickly rose to the top. In the year of 1965, Sir Laurence Oliver had eyed Hopkins and invited him to the Royal National Theatre. Philip had become Oliver's understudy, and later, he filled in for his part in "The Dance of Death," when Oliver had been struck with a serious medical condition. In Oliver's memoirs, "Confessions of an Actor," he noted that "a new young actor in the company of exceptional promise named Anthony Hopkins was understudying me and walked away with the part of Edgar like a cat with a mouse between it's teeth." After that, Philip Anthony Hopkins was considered the "new Laurence Oliver."

At the age of 30, Philip starred in his first film. Thirty two years after that in 1991, he played as the infamous Hannibal Lector in "Silence of the Lambs." He played that role two more times: one time in "Hannibal," and once more in "Red Dragon."

Anthony Hopkins has a splendid way of bringing emotions into the character he plays in films, plays, or anything really. The time he has spent training to help him as an actor overall has paid off. He was "given" his reward for his service to the arts. At the age of 64, Philip Anthony Hopkins was made a knight bachelor by Queen Elizabeth II. Six years before that, he was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE).

Anthony Hopkins has donated large sums of money to several organizations, such as the National Trust's Snowdonia, which was for the preservation of Snowdonia National Park. Another organization is Women in Recovery, which was to give assistance to women going through rehabilitation from substance abuse. Another is Greenpeace. Greenpeace is an environmental protection group against the whale hunt.

There are many more things Philip has done, but this should be enough to prove that Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins has every right to be a "Renaissance Man," for his actions, and acting.