Anthony Hopkins, Jonathan Pryce banter about who's more Welsh

The two Welsh actors, who have both received knighthoods, appear together in the film One Life

Welsh actors Sir Anthony Hopkins and Sir Jonathan Pryce bantered about who was the more Welsh on the set of their latest film, its director has said.

The pair star in One Life, which tells the true story of a man who saved hundreds of children from the Nazis.

The film's director said he had a "tough day" filming with the two.

James Hawes said Sir Anthony joked that Sir Jonathan would be "absolutely unbearable" since receiving a knighthood.

"When I told Tony that Jonathan was going to come on he said: 'Oh god, he's had a knighthood since we last met, he's going to be absolutely unbearable'," Hawes told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast.

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"They spent most of the day bantering about which of them was the more Welsh."

Pryce was born in Carmel near Holywell in Flintshire, and has had a prolific career on stage and screen.

He played Pope Francis in The Two Popes alongside Sir Anthony Hopkins who played his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI.

Port Talbot-born Sir Anthony, 86, made history in 2021 by becoming the oldest person to win an Academy Award for acting, winning a second Oscar for his role as a man with dementia in The Father.

One Life tells the story of British stockbroker Sir Nicholas Winton and also portrays Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines who was nine when she arrived in the UK from Prague in the summer of 1939.

She was sent to school in Llanwrtyd Wells, Powys, in 1943.

Lady Grenfell-Baines escaped Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia with her three-year-old sister in 1939 and travelled to the Netherlands overnight. They then travelled to England by boat.

Sir Nicholas Winton received the Order of White Lion, the highest order of the Czech Republic, in 2014

Her parents later managed to escape Prague too.

She later became a pupil at the Czechoslovak Secondary School in Llanwrtyd Wells after the Czech government in exile rented a large home, which had once been part of a family farm estate.

The film shows the moment when Sir Nicholas was reunited with some of those children, including Lady Grenfell-Baines, 50 years later.

The former Czechoslovak Secondary School is now Abernant Lake Hotel

They were housed in a "beautiful" hotel, she told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast.

"To introduce ourselves... we gave them a concert and sang, and we ended up singing Mae Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau," Lady Grenfell-Baines added.

"And from that minute, they adopted us.

"And to this day Llanwrtyd is twinned with a beautiful Czech town called Česky Krumlov."

Lady Milena Grenfell-Baines' travel document showing her photograph as a child in 1939

"I've been back when the mayors have exchanged visits and it's a place I've never forgotten," she added.

Director James Hawes said he believed it was necessary to redefine what we immediately think of when we hear the word "refugee".

"The fact that when we made the film we came face to face with Ukrainian refugees arriving in Prague drives the story," he said.

2 December 1938: Child refugees arriving at Harwich, Essex, from Germany

"Refugees have become huge contributors and leaders in British society and we need to rethink who these people are and how we're looking after them."

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