By Jennifer Ugwueke
Anthony Hopkins won the Best Actor honor at Sunday’s Academy Awards for his starring role in The Father. The 83-year-old made history with his second Oscar victory, becoming the oldest star to win an Academy Award for Best Actor award, after becoming the oldest Best Actor nominee when the 2021 Oscar nominations were announced in March.
This is Hopkins’ sixth Oscar nomination. He beat fellow nominees Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal), Chadwick Boseman (Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), Gary Oldman (Mank), and Steven Yeun (Minari).
Presenter Joaquin Phoenix, who won the category last year for his performance in Joker, accepted the award on an absent Hopkins’ behalf.
Just before his win he tweeted a video of himself in a South Wales graveyard visiting his baker father’s tombstone. The actor wrote:
‘Richard Hopkins, my beloved father, resting in eternal peace…’ and recited ‘Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night’ by Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, but couldn’t finish the words after becoming overcome with emotion saying: ‘God, I can’t do it, it’s too painful’.
After his no-show win on Sunday night, the award-winning actor shared a late acceptance video on Monday morning from Wales as he admitted that he ‘really did not expect’ his win.
Speaking in a short clip surrounded by sprawling Welsh countryside, Anthony said:
Good morning, here I am in my homeland of Wales and at 83-years-of-age I did not expect to get this award. I really didn’t. I am grateful to the Academy and thank you. I want to pay tribute to Chadwick Boseman who was taken from us far too early, and again, thank you all very much. I really did not expect this, so I feel very privileged and honoured. Thank you.
The Welsh actor won his first at the 64th Academy Awards, earning the Best Actor award for his iconic performance as the expert psychiatrist and cannibalistic serial killer Dr. Hannibal Lecter in the 1992 psychological thriller The Silence of the Lambs opposite Oscar winner Jodie Foster.
In The Father, Hopkins plays Anthony, an 80-year-old man with dementia who defiantly rejects the carers that his daughter Anne (Olivia Colman) introduces to him.
As his grip on reality begins to loosen, Anthony’s confusion surrounding his memories affects his identity and the relationships around him.
Hopkins told The New Yorker getting into the role of Anthony wasn’t as difficult as it seemed.
When you’re younger, you want to become ‘it…’ As the years have gone by, I’ve incorporated into my skill set a fast means of doing it. That is, to keep it simple, keep it relaxed, and know the text. Once you learn the text, it’s like getting into a car after years of experience. It’s automatic.