Sir Anthony Hopkins' performance as a man experiencing progressive memory loss in The Father is being hailed as one of his career's best. He's already picked up Golden Globe and BAFTA nominations, and is tipped to earn his sixth Oscar nod Monday (March 15).

We're saluting his latest stunning performance by making the Welsh actor our British Icon of the Week. Here are 10 remarkable and impressive things that we admire about the man who's "Tony" to his friends.

1. He definitely has a sense of humor.

Hopkins told Collider in 2011 that he had written "N.A.R." in his Thor script as shorthand for "No Acting Required." "I let the armor act for me on the sets. I showed up and put on my voice, and that was about it. I really enjoyed it," he added.

2. He's an accomplished composer of classical music.

In 2011, Dutch violinist André Rieu released an album including a waltz which Hopkins had composed nearly 50 years earlier. Rieu only heard Hopkins' composition, "And the Waltz Goes On," because the actor's wife sent it to him without her husband knowing.

When Rieu performed "And the Waltz Goes On" at a concert in Vienna that year, Hopkins was in the audience and took a well deserved bow at the end. It's certainly a touching moment.

3. He's also a passionate painter.

Discussing his technique with ARTnews last year, Hopkins said: "It takes me a long time to paint, but it’s not painstaking. I improvise and then I stop. I might go back to it a few weeks later and then complete it. And then I’ll think, Okay, enough, and start on something new. I’m hyperactive. Sometimes I’ll start on three paintings at once."

He added: "I try to change the style of paintings, but there’s no style to it. I experiment with oils and acrylics and ink and just mix it altogether. Painting is something I really enjoy, like playing the piano. I have a lot of fun with it. I just paint for the sheer enjoyment of it."

4. He became a U.S. citizen in April 2000.

According to EW, Hopkins' citizenship ceremony was attended by close friends including his Amistad director Steven Spielberg. Hopkins, who has lived in L.A. since the '90s, now maintains dual citizenship.

5. He has no intention of retiring.

"I'm happily married but my wife worries because I work too hard," he told the Radio Times in 2018. "I will go on working because what else would I do? I’ll retire when my teeth and my hair fall out. What’s the point in sitting and staring at the TV? I mean, I can’t play golf, and I don’t wish to."

6. He's an incredibly disciplined actor who goes over each scene 250 times in his brain.

"I have that kind of mind, I’m obsessive," he told The Sunday Times last month. "I learnt the foundation of any discipline I have in the theater, but I was never a team player. I wasn’t a good company member because I didn’t fit in. I didn’t belong anywhere. In those days I couldn’t wait to get out of the dressing room to the pub next door."

7. His potential was spotted by none other than Laurence Olivier when Hopkins replaced him in a 1965 play.

Olivier wrote in his autobiography: “A new young actor in the company of exceptional promise named Anthony Hopkins was understudying me and walked away with the part of Edgar like a cat with a mouse between its teeth.”

Still, Hopkins hasn’t acted on stage since 1989 and says he has no real desire to return. “I worked with Ian McKellen five years ago on the film The Dresser. I do admire him and Judi Dench and all those people who have that tenacity, that drive to go on stage," he told the Financial Times last year. "I, sadly, unfortunately… maybe I’m too nervous to expose that part of myself. I don’t think I’ve got that staying power, I don’t think I have that mettle in me to be repetitive night after night. No, I have no desire to go back there. Unless there was an extraordinary offer – and I’d have to think twice.”

8. He's generous to his fellow actors.

After watching Breaking Bad, Hopkins wrote a letter to star Bryan Cranston which went viral after being shared on Facebook. "Your performance as Walter White was the best acting I have seen – ever," Hopkins told Cranston.

"I know there is so much smoke blowing and sickening bullshit in this business, and I’ve sort of lost belief in anything really," he added. "But this work of yours is spectacular – absolutely stunning. What is extraordinary, is the sheer power of everyone in the entire production. What was it? Five or six years in the making? How the producers (yourself being one of them), the writers, directors, cinematographers… every department – casting etc. managed to keep the discipline and control from beginning to the end is (that over used word) awesome."

9.He says he's definitely mellowed over the years.

“I’m very happy I’m an alcoholic – it’s a great gift, because wherever I go, the abyss follows me," he told The Guardian in 2018. "It’s a volcanic anger you have, and it’s fuel. Rocket fuel. But of course it can rip you to pieces and kill you. So, gradually, over the years, I have learned not to be a people-pleaser. I don’t have a temper any more. I get impatient, but I try not to judge. I try to live and let live. I don’t get into arguments, I don’t offer opinions, and I think if you do that, then the anger finally begins to transform into drive.”

10. On December 29, 2020, he celebrated 45 years of sobriety.

Hopkins marked the occasion by posting a heartfelt video message on Twitter. “45 years ago today, I had a wake-up call," he told followers. "I was heading for disaster, drinking myself to death. I'm not preachy, but I got a message, a little thought, that said, ‘Do you want to live or die?’ and I wanted to live.”

Acknowledging that he still has “off days” and experiences “doubt," he encouraged others who are struggling to "hang in there."

“Today is the tomorrow you were so worried about yesterday,” Hopkins continued. “You young people, just keep in there. Don't give up, just keep fighting, be bold and mighty forces will come to your aid.”

Do you have a favorite Sir Anthony Hopkins role?