7 Biopics Where Anthony Hopkins Failed To Look Like Anyone Other Than Anthony Hopkins (With 1 Strange Exception)

By Simon Gallagher / November 24, 2012

many faces of Hopkins.

1. Hitchcock

The film that gave birth to this article, thanks to the recent crop of stills released ahead of the film's launch, Hitchcock will see Sir Anthony stepping into the shoes of arguably Britain's most celebrated director ever, focusing on the director's relationship with his wife Alma Reville during the filming of Psycho. There's no doubt that the film will be an arresting production for some, thanks in part to the quality of the collected talent behind the scenes as well as the on-screen quality of Sir Anthony, Helen Mirren and the rest of the cast - even if the early reviews seem to suggest some split opinions among the critics - but there's no hiding from the fact that the spirited attempt to hide Hopkins in what amounts to a stuffed Hitchcock costume does nothing to convince that he has become his intended subject. How He Really Looked

Hopkins' Version You could actually be forgiven for thinking that that was in fact Hopkins' version of former Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock - though it is still unavoidably Hopkins, no matter how much jowly make-up and prosthetics he's got stuck to his face. The problem for the make-up is that in some shots it doesn't look particularly real - like the lack of convincing skin texture in the chosen image above, and the simple fact is that putting a big fat neck on someone is not the same as making them look the same as Hitchcock, who had a fairly distinct look of his own that was a lot more than a bulging collar. He does however look more like Hitchcock than Toby Jones, who also starred as the director for HBO TV film The Girl, and failed miserably to hide his own deeply distinctive looks under some equally heavy make-up.