Daily US Times: Anthony Hopkins has honored the late actor Chadwick Boseman after winning Oscar for best actor category, hailing his fellow performer as a man “taken from us far too early.”
The 83-year-old Hopkins took the Academy Award for his performance in “The Father,” becoming the oldest actor or actress to win the prestigious award, edging out Christopher Plummer’s supporting actor win at age 82 in the 2010 film “Beginners.”
Hopkins’ win was anticlimactic on a show where he was not present to accept the prize. Presenter Joaquin Phoenix’s reading of his name was the last dramatic moment of a most unusual ceremony due to the coronavirus pandemic. Hopkins made a belated acceptance speech in a short video message posted on Instagram hours later, standing in front of the rolling green fields of his native Wales.
He said: “I want to pay tribute to Chadwick Boseman, who was taken from us far too early,” adding that “I really did not expect this, so I feel very privileged and honored.”
It is the first Oscar for the actor since he was victorious for playing Hannibal Lecter.
Despite his pedigree, Hopkins was a surprise winner of the Oscar for best actor for his work on “The Father,” playing the role of a man fighting dementia.
Boseman had been expected to win the award, which, in a very rare move from the Academy Award authority, was the last to be handed out this year instead of best picture.
Chadwick Boseman was nominated for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” his final film before cancer claimed his life last August at age 43.
The “Black Panther” star had been diagnosed with the cancer four years earlier and kept it private as he continued working.
Anthony Hopkins Hopkins has received four other Oscar nominations, including John Quincy Adams in the slavery drama “Amistad,” last year for his role as Benedict in “The Two Popes”; as the eponymous president in “Nixon”; and a loyal butler in “The Remains of the Day.”
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