Anglophenia: Anthony Hopkins as Alfred Hitchcock

Although Sir Anthony Hopkins doesn’t bear a close physical resemblance to Alfred Hitchcock he does very effectively portray the portly Master of Suspense in the new Hitchcock film out this week. “I didn’t want to put on weight, that was the last thing I wanted to do, I wanted to try to get the voice right,” he says. He also didn’t rely too heavily on elaborate makeup: “It looked like complicated makeup but it wasn’t. It was just a prosthetic that was put onto my chest - and then a little tip on my nose.” The film is set during the making of Hitchcock’s 1960 film classic Psycho which was his most commercially successful movie. The focus is on the relationship between the director and his wife Alma played by Dame Helen Mirren.