Best actor winner Anthony Hopkins salutes Chadwick Boseman

Absentee Oscar-winner Anthony Hopkins, who in an upset on Sunday won the Academy Award for best actor over the late Chadwick Boseman, saluted his fellow nominee in a short acceptance speech Monday.

"Well, here I am in my homeland in Wales, and at 83 years of age, I did not expect to get this award. I really didn't," the actor, now the oldest person to win an Oscar, said in an Instagram video. "I'm very grateful to the Academy, and thank you. And I want to pay tribute to Chadwick Boseman, who was taken from us far too early." Boseman died Aug. 28 at age 43 following a long and largely secret battle with colon cancer.

Hopkins, who won for his role as a combative senior sliding into dementia in "The Father," reiterated that, "I really did not expect this, so I feel very privileged and honored. Thank you." It was his second win, following best actor for "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991), and his sixth nomination. Commenting congratulations on Hopkins' Instagram post were fellow actors including Kate Beckinsale, Michael Douglas, Hugh Jackman, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Long Island native Alec Baldwin, who wrote, "Holy wow!"

Hopkins did not attend the awards ceremony, held in Los Angeles, either in person or remotely. "Tony was in Wales, where he grew up, and he was asleep at 4 in the morning when I woke him up to tell him the news," his agent, Jeremy Barber, told People magazine.

The unexpected win agitated many fans of the late "Black Panther" star, who was nominated for Netflix's film adaptation of August Wilson's Broadway play "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom." Boseman won Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards, among others, for playing an ambitious trumpeter, Levee, opposite fellow Oscar nominee Viola Davis as the titular blues singer. In seeming anticipation of a Boseman win, producers moved best actress and best actor to the final two spots, moving the traditional closer, best picture, ahead of them.

"Every single indication felt like they moved around the categories so that Chadwick Boseman would win best actor at the very end of the show," tweeted one person. "And then Anthony Hopkins wins, doesn't give a speech, and they roll credits. This is MAXIMUM chaotic energy."

Though the winners are kept secret even from the show's producers until announced publicly during the ceremony, some Twitter commenters falsely suggested that producers knew Hopkins would win and hyped the beloved Boseman regardless. One called it "sick how transparent the academy was in using chadwick boseman just for clicks and views, building everything up to the best actor award and inviting his family and giving him a tribute … and not giving him ANYTHING … he deserves more respect."

Other Twitter users took a larger perspective, with one commenting, "Chadwick Boseman will remain one of the greatest actors of all time, with or without that Oscar."