🔗 Share this article

It stands as the most iconic appearance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, proceeds down a row of prison cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. He is positioned, his face resembling a living skull filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless before suddenly he propels himself at the barrier, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless real-crime films have since demonstrated that genuine criminals are often very boring, lacking anything like the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not unrecognized when he landed that Oscar-winning role in the 1991 thriller in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but a legend was forged. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his rigorously precise acting coach his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a painful subject for the actor, who also describes how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage in 1966 to his first wife, who resented his absences and his alcohol use.

The title originates 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 felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a baker and a tough individual, a direct communicator who detested the religious hypocrites in their community and avoided expressing his feelings, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented the way they had to go humbly to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims during the car ride. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. However, one day in a literature class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time scholarships existed for drama school – an opportunity for actors from humble backgrounds. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but lucked into an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, which he liked more over theater. And he quit booze during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more studied. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He recalls going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not really. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Truly?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains it is one's responsibility to get there on time, know all the crew's names and do the job. Quite so. But he also recounts facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! 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 someone who gave up drink yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply