Actor-Inspired Element: The aria we hear in the movie (taken from the Georges Bizet opera The Pearl Fishers) was suggested to the director by Anthony Hopkins. Reportedly it is one of Hopkins' favorite pieces of music.
Actor-Shared Background: Zeller wrote the film with Anthony Hopkins in mind, so in addition to changing the main character's name, he made him Welsh and also gave him Hopkins' own age and birthday.
The Danza: Anthony Hopkins plays Anthony. The character was named Andre in the original play, but Zeller wanted Hopkins so much that he changed it to entice him.
Infamously so. Initially, Anthony Hopkins was viewed as the Oscar frontrunner, but after Chadwick Boseman's untimely death and subsequent raves for his work in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, most pundits believed he would win. And while Hopkins winning at Bafta gave pause to Boseman being a lock, several predictors wrote it off as a Brit benefitting from his home turf and continued to declare Boseman's win unstoppable. The Academy itself was quite confident in this outcome as well.
First, Hopkins' request that he be allowed to set up a zoom call in case he won was denied. Thought not confirmed, this is widely agreed to be because the Academy thought he had no chance and didn't want to waste money on such a thing, even though the actor was widely perceived as the category's runner up, including by those who thought he hadn't a chance.
Then during the ceremony, tradition was broken and Best Picture was presented midway through, with Actor taking it's place as the final award of the night. Viewers immediately noted that this was a clear ploy to have the late Boseman's win close out the night on a high note. Producer Steven Soderbergh would try to deny this and later claim that this structural change was planned before the nominations came out, but many cried foul given Boseman was already considered the frontrunner at the time he listed. Not helping was that in his statement, he admitted that the possible posthumous win would've been the perfect way to close out the show and stated "It wasn’t like we assumed it would, but if there was even a possibility that it would happen, then you have to account for that."
Tradition was also broken by having the previous year's Best Actor winner Joaquin Phoenix present rather than the last Best Actress winner Renée Zellweger. Given Zellweger - despite her recent awards success - had been out of the public spotlight for years while Phoenix had just earned a large new following from his box office smash Joker, several viewers deduced that the Academy was trying to make this presumed win a bigger event by further breaking tradition and making the larger star present it.
And when Phoenix announced Hopkins' shocking win, he then quickly said that the Academy accepted the award on his behalf before the show was hastily closed out. The Academy's acceptance of the Oscar was noted as being suspect given it was already publicly announced that should Hopkins win, his costar Olivia Colman was to accept the award on his behalf. This then sparked even more rumors that Phoenix was not told this due to the producers being so certain such a thing would never happen.
The morning after the Oscars and all the backlash towards the ceremony over baiting fans of a deceased actor with an award he wouldn't get, Hopkins posted an acceptance speech online in which he offered sincere thanks while paying tribute to Boseman, twice admitting in the message that he "really did not expect this".
Playing with Character Type: Many reviews pointed out that Anthony's dementia is made even more poignant from being played by an actor like Anthony Hopkins who almost always plays characters who are fully in control of any situation. He gives the same kind of performance here, but it only serves to make him more pitiful as it becomes clear how little control he has over his own mind.
Self-Adaptation: Director Florian Zellner adapts his own play to film.
At 83 years old, Anthony Hopkins is now the oldest actor to be nominated for Best Actor at the Academy Awards, beating Richard Farnsworth's 22-year record at age 79 for The Straight Story. Adding on to that, his victory has made him not only the category's oldest winner, but also the oldest acting winner in any category (the previous record belonging to Christopher Plummer winning Best Supporting Actor at 82 for Beginners). Hopkins is also notable as the first openly autistic actor to win an Oscar; though he had previously won for The Silence of the Lambs 29 years earlier, his win for The Father marks his first Oscar since the diagnosis and subsequent revelation of his autism.
Andre/Anthony holds the fairly rare distinction of winning both an Oscar and Tony for the actors who played him, with Frank Langella taking the role on stage.
though he had previously won for The Silence of the Lambs 29 years earlier, his win for The Father marks his first Oscar since the diagnosis and subsequent revelation of his autism.