brains. I didn't know what I was doing there. That's why I became an actor." At age 17, he joined a community junior drama club and quickly realized that acting was to be his fate. Hopkins went on to attend the Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff, and in 1961, he won a scholarship to London's prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, from which he graduated two years later. He became a member of the Phoenix Theater company in Leicester in 1963, and in 1965 had the honor of auditioning before one of his idols, Laurence Olivier, for a position with the company of the National Theatre, which he won. Hopkins enjoyed tremendous success at the Old Vic (as the theater is called), and in timemoved on to undertake the roles in films that have earned him a place among the greatest actors of our time.

Hopkins' first film role of note was that of sulky Richard the Lionheart in 1968's acclaimed The Lion in Winter, in which he starred with legendary actors Peter O'Toole and Katharine Hepburn. He has appeared in some 90 movies since then, all of which have garnered him critical plaudits, even in those instances where the films themselves struck hollow notes (witness 1994's The Road to Wellville). The role he is most popularly known for is surely that of the fascinatingly, enticingly, unforgettably chilling Dr. Hannibal "The Cannibal" Lecter in Jonathan Demme's creepfest The Silence of the Lambs. The 1991 film brought Hopkins sharply to the attention of an