Nia Wyn EvansSir Anthony Hopkins had Dolgellau as his backdrop to scenes in a new filmHundreds of people descended on a north Wales town this week to watch Oscar-winning actor Sir Anthony Hopkins during filming.
The 88-year-old's upcoming film, A Visit To Grandpa's, follows a young boy sent to spend a summer with his eccentric grandfather on a Welsh farm, surprised by the adventures he finds.
Sir Anthony and the crew for the film, which is based on a short story by Dylan Thomas, drew large crowds in Dolgellau, Gwynedd, bringing "a lot of excitement and a sense of pride", said deputy mayor Nia Wyn Evans.
"We're used to having a lot of people around the town, but obviously we're not used to having a production team changing our little town into a Hollywood scene," she said.
Evans said about 200 people, including local residents and tourists, came to see Sir Anthony and the set across three days, describing it as a "very special experience for the whole community".
"He was there to have a chat with them and he just made people feel special," she added.
"He came across as a very down-to-earth man who appreciated the beauty of our town.
"He had the time to talk to people which we were really pleased with - they would have been distraught if he wouldn't have."
Nia Wyn EvansAbout 200 people came to see Hopkins and the set across three daysA release date has not yet been issued for the film, which also features Newport-born Peaky Blinders star Aimee-Ffion Edwards as the mother, as well as Dr Who's Aneurin Barnard.
The film's director DJ Caruso called it "one of the great honours of my directorial life" to bring Thomas' story to life alongside Sir Anthony.
The Port Talbot-born actor is widely considered one of the world's greatest living actors and known for portraying psychotic serial killer Hannibal Lecter in the 1991 horror film The Silence Of The Lambs, for which he won an Oscar for Best Actor the following year.
He went on to star in The Silence Of The Lambs sequel Hannibal (2001) and its prequel Red Dragon (2002), before winning a second Oscar for Best Actor in 2021 for his role in Florian Zeller's The Father which also starred Olivia Colman.
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