ANTHONY HOPKINS: MY LIFE IN 10 Pictures

“I WAS an only child and very shy — a miserable student, very introverted,” confessed Philip Anthony Hopkins of growing up in Port Talbot, Wales. But he was also drawn to the arts and aspired to be like Richard Burton, who hailed from his small town. Yet, as he joked, “I became an actor quite by accident [as] I couldn’t do anything else well.” And from his start on the Shakespearean stage to being knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, he’s done more than well — so much so that, for Tony, who turns 85 on Dec. 31, there’s “nothing to prove, nothing to win, nothing to lose, no sweat, no big deal. And that’s my philosophy.”

1 1968 LION'S SHARE 

Making 1 his feature debut in The Lion in Winter, Anthony found his co-star Katharine Hepburn "pretty formidable" but "perfectly pleasant to work with, very direct, honest, straightforward. She said, 'Don't act. Just speak the lines. Like Spencer Tracy. Do that, darling. Let the camera do the work.' Best advice I ever had."

2 1980 MAN TO MAN

On The Elephant Man, Tony didn't get along with director David Lynch. "In those days, I was younger and I was impatient. He liked to do a lot of takes. I said, 'I don't want to do all that.' Many years later, I wrote him a letter apologizing for my behavior.... I told him it's a masterpiece."

3 1987 NEXT ACT 

"I knew I was in the wrong world," shared Tony about forgoing the stage, as he felt he wasn't in the same "league" as Judi Dench, his co-star in Antony and Cleopatra. "I didn't feel I could fit in. [But] I never have, all my life."

4 1991 SCARE TACTIC