🔗 Share this article

It stands as the most memorable appearance in film history – while he stands without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, navigates a row of prison cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, appearing as a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move before suddenly he throws himself against the glass, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless true-crime documentaries have since revealed that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, far from the actor's commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller during the late 80s: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar emerged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and also from his strictly demanding acting coach his instructor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a difficult topic for the actor, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage during the 60s with Petronella Barker, who disliked his time away and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a baker and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who despised the religious hypocrites of the chapel and avoided expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented the necessity of going begging to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and could get young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. But one day in an English lesson he was required to perform the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, started his career. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then there were grants for drama school – a path to success for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but fortunately found a memorable TV character playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, which he preferred over theater. He gave up alcohol back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live into middle age to execute great performances, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. A few tales fall a bit flat. He mentions being taken out to lunch by his co-star in the film Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who sought to advise him his portrayal of Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for him to absorb something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting due to resentment. Really?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains it is one's responsibility to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Quite so. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply