Anthony Hopkins wins best actor Oscar for 'The Father'

LOS ANGELES, April 25 (Reuters) - British actor Anthony

Hopkins won his second Oscar on Sunday for his heart-wrenching

performance as a man with dementia in "The Father."

Hopkins, 83, has a six-decade film, TV and stage career,

but is perhaps best known for playing the brilliant but twisted

murderer Hannibal Lecter in the 1991 thriller "The Silence of

the Lambs," for which he won his first Oscar.

His best lead actor win on Sunday made him the oldest actor

to get an Academy Award, an honor previously held by the late

Christopher Plummer.

In "The Father," Hopkins plays an aging man who has refused

any help from his family and who is beginning to doubt what is

real and what is imagined. It is adapted from a 2012 stage play

of the same name.

Hopkins told Variety that playing the role "made me very

aware now how precious life is."

Born in Wales, the soft-spoken Hopkins is the son of a baker

whose career has seen him playing characters ranging from the

late U.S. President Richard Nixon to artist Pablo Picasso, Pope

Benedict and director Alfred Hitchcock.

But Hopkins says his first love was music and that he came

to acting as a profession by accident. He is also an

accomplished pianist and artist who has lived for years in

California.

He was made a knight by Queen Elizabeth in 1993, giving him

the formal title Sir Anthony Hopkins.

Hopkins won on Sunday over the late Chadwick Boseman, who

had been the presumed front runner for a posthumous, first Oscar

in his final role in jazz drama "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom."

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

((jill.serjeant1@thomsonreuters.com; 310 491 7279;))

Keywords: AWARDS OSCARS/ACTOR

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.