🔗 Share this article

Widely regarded as the most iconic entrance in film history – and he remains utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, proceeds down a row of prison cells finally encountering Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, his face resembling a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move until the moment he throws himself at the barrier, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless real-crime films have since revealed that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, far from the actor's commanding screen presence.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film back in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was forged. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own icily exacting drama teacher his mentor Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a painful subject for Hopkins, who further explains how his Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented his time away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a bread-maker and man's man, a straightforward talker who detested the religious hypocrites of the chapel and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who was angered by how they were forced begging to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. But one day in an English lesson he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and the other boys. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time financial aid was available to attend Rada – a way up for working-class actors. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, which he preferred compared to stage acting. He gave up alcohol during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and so survived into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more calculated. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He remembers being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his portrayal of Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it's your duty to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Absolutely. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And develop some respect. You ever do that again in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! He appears to be a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a detailed supplement composed simply