American audience that had previously lumped him in with a slew of British actors: remotely respected, but not intimately known. Hannibal Lecter, as brought to life by Hopkins, was one of the most powerfully attractive villains in cinematic history uncanny intelligence blending with hideous malice and an unexpected tenderness to create an unforgettable portrait of what seemed to many people to be a real, living person.

Since then, America has not taken its eyes off Anthony Hopkins. After winning the Academy Award for Best Actor for that performance, he starred in a searingly human part in the 1992 Merchant-Ivory film Howard's End (with Emma Thompson, Helena Bonham Carter, and Vanessa Redgrave), tormented audiences with his Oscar-nominated rendering of Stevens, the infuriatingly repressed butler in Remains of the Day (1993)(also with Thompson), and created an eerily uncanny portrait of Richard Nixon in the 1995 Oliver Stone biopic Nixon, a portrayal that also garnered an Academy nod. In subsequent roles, Hopkins has continued to astonish with his almost frightening ability to transform himself into each character he essays, even going so far as to alter his physical appearance to the point that he is almost unrecognizable. His performance as the title painter in Surviving Picasso (1996) was no less remarkable for his acting ability than for the fact that he looked just like the visionary Spaniard.

1996 saw Hopkins's first foray into directing, with August, an adaptation of the brilliant Anton Chekov play Uncle Vanya, which he transposed to a seaside Wales setting; he also starred in the movie