🔗 Share this article

It stands as the greatest appearance in movie lore – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, must walk a corridor of cells arriving at Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, appearing as an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, chillingly static clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move right up until he propels himself at the barrier, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous real-crime films have since demonstrated that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but a legend was cemented. His portrayal of Lecter drew influence, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own icily exacting acting coach his instructor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a painful subject for Anthony, who also describes how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by deep-seated remorse regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union during the 60s to his first wife, who disliked his absences and his drinking habits.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child hailing from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who loathed the religious hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in displaying emotion, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who was angered by the necessity of going begging to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure young Anthony into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he shouts during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. Then, during during an English class he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He reasonably claims that poetry, on its own, started his career. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time financial aid was available to go to Rada – a way up for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but fortunately found a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, which he preferred over theater. And he quit booze in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and so survived into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He mentions going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Really?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and do the job. Absolutely. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with a detailed supplement composed simply