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Hollywood star Sir Anthony Hopkins has revealed that when he first received the script of The Silence of the Lambs he thought it was a children’s movie.

Speaking in an interview the Port Talbot born movie legend said: “When I read the title I thought it was a movie for kids.”

Hopkins, who celebrates his 76th birthday today, went on to win the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1991 for his iconic role as flamboyant, people eating villain Hannibal Lecter opposite Jodie Foster as Clarice Starling, who also picked up an Oscar for Best Actress, the film winning Best Picture, Best Director and Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay) Oscars.

The power of Hopkins’ portrayal of Lecter was highlighted by the fact it was one of the shortest lead performances to win an Oscar, as Hopkins only appeared on screen for little over 16 minutes, less than 14% of the film’s running-time.

In the interview, being broadcast on TCM, Hopkins revealed although he had starred in highly rated films including Magic, The Elephant Man and Bounty, his future in Hollywood did not seem very promising before he landed the role as Lecter.

He said: “I had resigned myself to becoming a respectable actor in London’s West End and the BBC for the rest of my life.”

Hopkins said despite lead roles in films like Remains of the Day and Shadowlands and winning three BAFTA awards in addition to the Oscar he remains an insecure actor.

He said: “Overcoming this insecurity has been one of the engines of my career.”

Hopkins, now based in Santa Monica, remains one of the busiest actors in Hollywood having played in star studded Red 2 this year and once again as Norse God Odin in Thor: The Dark World and he will be playing Methuselah the “oldest man in the history of mankind” in Noah.

The Welsh star will also be playing Ernest Hemingway in upcoming Hemingway and Fuentes, about the American novelist’s relationship with sea captain Gregorio Fuentes, which inspired him to pen the famous tale The Old Man and the Sea.

Speaking of the future, Hopkins said: “My ambitions? I have always wanted to make films.”

Hopkins was born on December 31, 1937 in Margam, Port Talbot, the son of baker Richard Hopkins and his wife Muriel, a distant relative of the Irish poet William Butler Yeats.

He was inspired to become an actor by Richard Burton, born a few miles away in Pontrhydyfen, who he met at the local YMCA just as Burton’s career was taking off.

Hopkins studied at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff and in 1965 he was admitted to the National Theatre Company as understudy to theatre great Sir Laurence Olivier.

When Olivier came down with appendicitis during a production of Dance of Death, the young Hopkins stepped in, making waves.

Olivier wrote in his memoir, “A new young actor in the company of exceptional promise named Anthony Hopkins was understudying me and walked away with the part of Edgar like a cat with a mouse between its teeth.”

Hopkins started on the small-screen in 1967 with a BBC production of A Flea in Her Ear. Soon after he was cast in The Lion in Winter (1968) as Richard I, sharing the screen with established stars Peter O’Toole and Katherine Hepburn.