Anthony Hopkins is on screen for about sixteen minutes in The Silence of the Lambs and won Best Actor for it, which is among the shortest winning performances ever. The technique is refusal. He does not blink for long stretches and does not move, so the audience does the work.
He trained in Welsh and British theatre, understudied Olivier, and brought a technical precision that he has described in interviews as being mostly about learning the lines completely so nothing else requires attention.
The Remains of the Day is the better performance, a butler who has suppressed himself so thoroughly that the tragedy is invisible to him.
He won a second Best Actor for The Father at eighty-three, becoming the oldest winner, in a film that puts the audience inside dementia instead of observing it.
