(Credits: Far Out / YouTube Still)
Sun 23 November 2025 16:45, UK
For obvious reasons, it’s a lot easier to try and settle on cinema’s greatest living actor than the greatest of all time, since huge swathes of the field are instantly eliminated by virtue of being dead. Anthony Hopkins is unquestionably one of the best that’s still breathing, but he’d never dream of betting on himself.
He almost makes the whole acting thing sound easy, such is the dismissive way he talks about his craft. As far as Hopkins is concerned, it’s easy; he reads the script so many times that he’s memorised every word long before he’s set foot on set, and when he does, he performs the scenes as written and then goes home.
It’s not quite that simple; otherwise, everyone would be as good as he is, but that’s how he’s always seen it. The two-time Academy Award winner is still delivering top-tier performances in his late 80s, an impressive feat for someone who’s always loathed the machinations of filmmaking as much as they love their job. Is he one of the best living actors? Of course. One of the best ever? Also yes. Would he ever dream of admitting it? Absolutely not.
Daniel Day-Lewis, Al Pacino, Frances McDormand, Jack Nicholson, Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, Denzel Washington, Tom Hanks, Dustin Hoffman, Viola Davis, are all still alive and kicking and worthy of consideration, but when the erstwhile Hannibal Lecter was rattling off every single performer in the business that he admires, he put one of them on a special pedestal.
“When I get going naming actors I admire, it’s hard for me to stop,” he wrote in his memoir, We Did OK, Kid. “Taron Egerton was phenomenal as Elton John in Rocketman. Ed Norton. Billy Burke. Olivia Colman… And Jonathan Pryce, whom I appeared with in The Two Popes,” which was only the tip of the iceberg.
Hopkins also named Mark Gatiss, Salma Hayek, Michael Gambon, Mark Wahlberg, Emma Thompson, Josh Brolin, Sean Penn, Winona Ryder, Robert Downey Jr, Sylvester Stallone, who he particularly admired for “his powerful determination to stay strong and tough” when making Rocky, Michael Caine, who he called “another lifer who stayed the course,” and “the great Ian McKellen.”
That’s 17 and counting, and while there hopefully aren’t too many cinephiles out there who consider Mark Wahlberg among the modern greats, Hopkins approves of some elite talents. That said, one of them got special praise from the veteran Welshman: “Judi Dench is probably the best actress there is.”
Hopkins admires all of them, but Dench was the only one who got the distinction of the extra superlative, and with good reason. Nobody could argue against one of the most celebrated and decorated stars in the history of British acting, covering film, television, and theatre, being one of the all-time greats, even if she’d be in the same boat as him and scoff at the mere notion.
For someone who hates actors, calling one of his peers the best around carries some extra heft, and it’s not like Dench isn’t worthy of the tag.
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