Sir Anthony Hopkins didn’t expect to win the Oscar for his landmark work in “The Father.” He went on a trip to his homeland of Wales instead. Like all of us, he thought Chadwick Boseman would win the Oscar for Best Actor. Hopkins paid tribute to him this morning on Instagram. It’s Hopkins’ second Oscar. His first was for the 1991 “Silence of the Lambs.” He was 53 then, and had labored for decades under the shadow a more famous Welsh actor, Richard Burton. But Hopkins has exceeded Burton, giving memorable performances in so many films like “Remains of the Day,” “Howard’s End,” “Shadowlands,” and so on. Bravo!
As for Boseman, it seems as though many Academy voters got cold feet in the last couple of weeks. A feeling that the vote would be “wasted” was heard a lot, even though everyone admired his work in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.” He and Viola Davis won the Screen Actors Guild Award for that film, and I thought that would repeat at the Oscars. So that theory is out the window.
