Tuesday, May 22------Oscar-winning actor and eminence grise Sir Anthony Hopkins will be honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award on Wednesday, May 30 at the Seattle International Film Festival (which opens tomorrow evening). Hopkins will be presented with the Award during a special tribute evening at Seattle's Egyptian Theatre. The event will include an onstage interview, film clips and a question & answer session from the audience followed by a screening of his Oscar-nominated role in THE REMAINS OF THE DAY.

Hopkins turns 70 this year (his birthday is December 31). He was born in 1937 in Margam, Wales (the same town that Richard Burton hailed from). In fact, Burton was an early mentor, encouraging the fledgling actor to study at Royal College of Music and Drama, from which he graduated in 1957. In 1965 he moved to London and was invited by Laurence Olivier to join the newly formed National Theater. He first drew popular attention in a television film A FLEA IN HER EAR in 1967, which then began a 40 year career in both cinema and television that has never flagged for four decades.

Hopkins made his film debut in 1968 in the Oscar-nominated THE LION IN WINTER (starring opposite Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole). Among his major film successes are A BRIDGE TOO FAR (1977), AUDREY ROSE (1977), THE ELEPHANT MAN (1980), 84 CHARING CROSS ROAD (1987), THE DESPERATE HOURS (1990), HOWARD'S END (1992), THE REMAINS OF THE DAY (1993), LEGENDS OF THE FALL (1994), NIXON (1995), SURVIVING PICASSO (1996), AMISTAD (1997), TITUS (1999), BAD COMPANY (2002), THE HUMAN STAIN (2003), PROOF (2005) and BOBBY (2006). And, of course, the role with which he is most associated, the diabolical Hannibal Lecter, which he introduced in THE SILENCE OF THE LAMBS (1991), for which he won both the Oscar and BAFTA Awards as Best Actor, and reprised in HANNIBAL (2001) and RED DRAGON (2002).

In a prolific career Hopkins has won every major award (including the Oscar, Golden Globe, BAFTA, New York Film Critics and Emmy). He has memorably portrayed such diverse characters as Adolf Hitler, Yitzhak Rabin, John Quincy Adams, Richard Nixon, Guy Burgess, St. Paul, Captain Bligh, Picasso, Quasimodo, C. S. Lewis and everybody’s favorite cannibal, Hannibal Lecter. Last year, Hopkins made his directorial debut with the fantasy drama SLIPSTREAM and can currently be seen on  screens opposite Ryan Gosling in FRACTURE. The actor will appear later this year in new adaptations of BEOWULF and THE WOLF MAN. At seventy, Sir Anthony Hopkins shows no signs of slowing down.

Sandy Mandelberger, Awards Watch Editor