📍Margam, Port Talbot, Wales
1937 – 1955“Anthony Hopkins was born in Margam, near Port Talbot in South Wales, on New Year's Eve 1937, the only child of Muriel and Dick Hopkins. His father was a baker who ran the family bakery in neighbouring Taibach, and the family lived in a semi-detached house in Port Talbot, a steel town on the coast, with the smoke of the steelworks on one side and the hills on the other. He was a lonely, awkward child who struggled at school; he later discovered he was dyslexic, and he has described himself as a poor student who felt like an outsider. He preferred to be alone, painting and playing the piano, which he had begun at four, and he found comfort in films and music. His parents sent him to Jones' West Monmouth School in Pontypool and then to Cowbridge Grammar School, but he did not shine there either. At fifteen he met Richard Burton, who had grown up in nearby Pontrhydyfen, and the encounter with the famous actor from his own corner of Wales inspired him. At seventeen he joined the YMCA's amateur dramatic group in Port Talbot and discovered acting. He went on to the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and was later spotted by Laurence Olivier. He won Oscars for The Silence of the Lambs and The Father. In 2025 he published a memoir, We Did OK, Kid, about his journey from Port Talbot, and he has visited the house where he grew up and kept a deep love for his parents and his home town.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today