Will Anthony Hopkins win his first Golden Globe for The Two Popes?

It’s hard to imagine, but Anthony Hopkins has never won a Golden Globe award. He’s nominated a seventh time for another gift of a performance in The Two Popes. Will seven be his lucky number at the 77th Golden Globe Awards?

I’ve complained that some of the best performances were left off the list of the 77th Golden Globe Awards, and we’ve seen so many of the names who made it before. The exception is Sir Anthony Hopkins, who has been nominated seven times prior, but surprisingly never won. His quiet, compassionate portrayal of Pope Benedict XVI in Netflix’s The Two Popes is one of those magical performances that you think you know, but layer by layer, becomes a revelation in the hands of the master thespian Hopkins.

The 82-year-old legendary actor is up against some big names in his category, Best Performance by a Supporting Actor in any Motion Picture, including Al Pacino and Joe Pesci in The Irishman, Brad Pitt in Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood, and Tom Hanks from A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.

The category is chock full of household names, but really, it’s Anthony Hopkin’s empathetic performance as Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, one of only two popes to step aside in history, that should walk away with the statue.

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Hopkin’s portrayal of Ratzinger in the Netflix film is magical. We know the Oscar winner (for Silence of the Lambs) can do showy, but in The Two Popes, he brings a subtle, sublime quality to a role, which could have easily been unsympathetic. He infuses Ratzinger with great humanity that by the end, you are with him when he’s cheering on his German soccer (football) team against Pope Francis’s Argentina.

Watch the trailer for The Two Popes, below: 

It’s a joyful performance that reminds us all that Anthony Hopkins is still turning out phenomenal work into his eighth decade. Years after he secured nominations for The Silence of the Lambs, Nixon, and The Remains of the Day, he’s up for his seventh opportunity to win. Hopkins was awarded the Cecil B. deMille award in 2006 for his body of incredible work, but wouldn’t it be nice to see one of the greatest actors of all time win a performance award for Netflix’s The Two Popes?

The man is also so incredibly talented, he not only plays the piano beautifully (see in The Two Popes), but also released an album of his own compositions.

As much as his thrilling portrayal in Silence of the Lambs deserved the win in 1992, it’s always been the quieter, piercing roles of Hopkins where his simmering brilliance shines the most, such as Remains of the Day. He never received a Golden Globe nom for one of this best roles, the grand architect Dr. Robert Ford in HBO’s Westworld, although he got an Emmy nod for the role. It’s often his falsely-calming, intense performances that are the most powerful for me.

Even if Anthony Hopkins doesn’t win at the 2020 Golden Globes, audiences are lucky that the ridiculously talented gentleman has a restless energy (check out his interview in The Guardian, and a thoroughly intriguing one by Brad Pitt in Interview Magazine) enough to keep churning out acting gems. Next up is a headlining role in The Father, to debut at the Sundance Festival later this month.

The Two Popes is currently available on Netflix (which you should also check out for Jonathan Pryce’s equally wonderful turn as Pope Francis, who is also nominated). The 77th Annual Golden Globes airs on NBC at 8 p.m. ET.