{"id":280513,"date":"2025-11-09T03:17:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-09T03:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/280513\/"},"modified":"2025-11-09T03:17:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-09T03:17:09","slug":"the-fat-slob-who-almost-made-anthony-hopkins-quit-an-oscar-nominated-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/280513\/","title":{"rendered":"The “fat slob” who almost made Anthony Hopkins quit an Oscar-nominated role"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Anthony<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still)<\/p>\n

Sat 8 November 2025 17:15, UK <\/p>\n

Even when he was a young actor cutting his teeth on the London stage in the 1960s, Anthony Hopkins<\/a> was never short on confidence. Then again, arrogance might be more apt, since he had no issues admitting that the biggest obstacle he faced in those early years was often himself.<\/p>\n

The duality at the heart of his career has been in place for six decades; Hopkins adores everything about acting, but he hates actors. If he had his way, he\u2019d simply turn up on set, not talk to anyone, and then go home at the end of the day after completing his scenes, because he finds everything else to be a pain in the arse<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Awards ceremonies? He can\u2019t stand them. Method actors? Can\u2019t stand them, either. The relentless technological innovations of cinema? He\u2019s not the biggest fan. Big-budget studio films? The star of Transformers: The Last Knight and Rebel Moon called them \u201cawful, horrible things to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s never been the happiest of chappies, then, but he\u2019s always been very good at his job. Confidence has never been something Hopkins has lacked, whether it\u2019s quitting mid-performance to take a moral stand<\/a>, calling filmmakers out on set for their unprofessionalism, or openly trashing many of his previous credits. And yet, a few choice words from a co-star had him begging a director to fire him on the spot.<\/p>\n

In his defence, Hopkins didn\u2019t think he was the right man to play the title role in Oliver Stone\u2019s Nixon. As a Welshman who didn\u2019t look much like the subject, he had no idea why the Platoon and JFK steward was so desperate to cast him in the part. Eventually, thanks to some reverse psychology<\/a>, he agreed and was rewarded with an Academy Award nomination for \u2018Best Actor\u2019.<\/p>\n

However, if Paul Sorvino had gotten his way, it never would have happened. The Goodfellas alum, who played national security advisor and eventual secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, wasn\u2019t impressed with Hopkins\u2019 accent during an early table read, criticising how little he sounded like Nixon.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour voice was all wrong, your speech patterns are way off,\u201d Hopkins recalled him saying in his memoir, We Did OK, Kid. Even though he already had an Oscar under his belt for turning Hannibal Lecter into a cultural icon in Jonathan Demme\u2019s The Silence of the Lambs, Sorvino, who\u2019d never even been shortlisted for any major awards, decided to tell the star that he was blowing it.<\/p>\n

Taking it to heart, Hopkins requested that Stone release him from his contract, telling the filmmaker, \u201cI don\u2019t want to spoil your film.\u201d This being the famously brash and outspoken mind behind several of his era\u2019s most incendiary movies, his response emboldened the leading man, restored his confidence, and verbally annihilated Sorvino, all in one fell swoop.<\/p>\n

\u201cHas that fat slob been getting to you?\u201d Stone asked. \u201cYou don\u2019t have to answer. I know he was. He\u2019s a baby. Don\u2019t take any notice of him.\u201d From that moment on, he couldn\u2019t have cared less what Sorvino had to say, and he embraced his role as the disgraced former president.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ YouTube Still) Sat 8 November 2025 17:15, UK Even when he was a young…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[39994,236,88,104813,148513],"class_list":{"0":"post-280513","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-anthony-hopkins","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-oliver-stone","12":"tag-paul-sorvino"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}