In the 1960s Anthony Hopkins served as Laurence Olivier’s understudy in a play at London’s National Theater and when he actually had to step in for Olivier, Hopkins says that it was terrifying experience.

He said: “I was 28 and I was in a play called The Dance of Death and Olivier was taken ill and I thought producers would cancel the show and they said, ‘No, you’re going on’. But, the audience showed up and I remember halfway through the show I was looking out at the audience thinking, ‘I better go home, go home, go home, and then another part of my brain kept looking and I did the performance and they gave me a standing ovation. Olivier came out of the hospital in his bathrobe just to watch and he phoned me the next morning and said, ‘Well done’. It was great, it was extraordinary, I couldn’t believe I was doing it.”

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