Story By Eirik Knutzen    
Photography By Jeff Dunas

Sir Anthony, the man who sent fava bean futures soaring with "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991)-has marched to his own drum and bugle corps since he was a young boy in Port Talbot, Wales, the only child of housewife Muriel and modestly successful Baker Richard Hopkins. Born on New Year's Eve 1937, his sheltered childhood was shaped in part by the last stages of the Great Depression and the human toll in Britain during World War II. An introverted child, Hopkins played the piano obsessively until he suddenly turned to acting one day because he "wasn't too swift" in school, academically or athletically due to an acute lack of interest.

"Nor did I have much of a light side to my nature," muses the compact, 65- year-old performer. "Trying to figure out where I was going in life, I decided to become either notorious or famous. In the end, I thought it was safer to become an actor than to rob banks."

At 17, after some experience with a community drama club and a fortuitous meeting with local hero Richard Burton, the still somewhat shy and retiring Hopkins enrolled at the Cardiff College of Music and Drama for two years. He followed it up with two more years of training to operate heavy guns in the Royal Artillery, then signed up for advanced acting courses at London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA) before auditioning for Lord Laurence Olivier at England's National Theatre in 1965. With time, the often intimidating Olivier became a close friend and a major influence in Hopkins' life.

"Olivier took me under his wing and encouraged me to be as daring as he was," he says. "He taught me to follow my intuition and not be frightened of failures and mistakes. I try. I don't care what anyone says about my work-I do it, it's my statement and to hell with everyone." And since Hopkins brought a 15-year drinking problem under control in 1975, his simple, personal philosophy, more or less, has been: "Screw everyone and get on with it. By that, I don't mean having to step on the other guy's face. It's merely that I decided to get a grip on my own life and not let other people tell me what to do."

Hopkins, who now commands approximately $20 million per picture, had more than 10 years of stage experience before being cast along with Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole in his first major motion picture, "The Lion in the Winter" (1968). His scores of feature film projects now include "Hamlet" (1969), "A Bridge Too Far" (1977), "Magic" (1978), "The Elephant Man" (1980), "84 Charing Cross Road" (1986), "The Mask of Zorro" (1998), "Hearts in Atlantis" (2001), his Academy Award for Best Actor in "Silence of the Lambs" (1991), plus Oscar nominations for "The Remains of the Day" (1993), "Nixon" (1995) and "Amistad" (1997). He is currently headlining opposite Nicole Kidman in "The Human Stain," a screen project based on Phillip Roth's best-selling novel, and is set to play Ptolemy in Oliver Stone's "Alexander the Great" with Colin Farrell this fall and winter. Despite a relentless work schedule that also includes an extremely successful run in the 1973-74 Broadway production of "Equus" and dozens of television movies-carting off Emmy Awards for "The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case" (1976) and "The Bunker" (1981)-Hopkins did find time to get married thrice-most recently in March to former Antique Dealer Stella Arroyave in a simple, elegant ceremony at their lovely Malibu home in the company of a few friends including Mickey Rooney, and John Cleese and longtime Siegfried & Roy manager, Bernie Yuman.