Sir Anthony Hopkins Reads Dylan Thomas’ “Do not go gentle into that good night.”

The great actor Sir Antho­ny Hop­kins is well versed in the work of fel­low Welsh­man Dylan Thomas — so much so he even direct­ed the crit­i­cal­ly laud­ed film Dylan Thomas: The Return Jour­ney in 2006. Here, he is read­ing one of Thomas’ best-known poems, “Do not go gen­tle into that good night.” (If any­one knows when this video was made, please drop us a line.)

There is, of course, no read­er of Thomas’ poet­ry equal to Thomas him­self. Just lis­ten to this BBC record­ing from 1951, the year the beloved vil­lanelle was first pub­lished. But if dul­cet tones and min­i­mal­ist record­ings aren’t your thing, then you might want to check out this John Cale ver­sion.

And then, because it’s Fri­day, don’t for­get Rod­ney Dan­ger­field.

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Relat­ed:

Lis­ten­ing to Famous Poets Read­ing Their Own Work

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly