🔗 Share this article

Many consider it the greatest appearance in movie lore – while he stands without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, navigates a corridor of cells arriving at Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, with features like a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, chillingly static clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He stands frozen right up until he propels himself toward the window, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. A multitude of documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that genuine criminals are often very boring, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but a legend was cemented. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his rigorously precise drama teacher his mentor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a painful subject for the actor, who recounts how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who disliked his time away and drinking.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and avoided expressing his feelings, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who was angered by the way they had to go begging to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and was able to secure young Anthony into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he exclaims during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. He was a poor student in his new institution. However, one day in a literature class he was required to perform John Masefield's poem titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other boys. He convincingly states that verse, by itself, started his career. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated with low prospects, pursued acting, and shocking his family, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time there were grants for drama school – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but lucked into a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which paved the way to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, that he favored to the stage. He stopped drinking back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and thus made it into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the latter half of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more calculated. Certain stories aren't entirely successful. He remembers having lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it's your duty to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Absolutely. But he also recounts facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And learn some manners. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a detailed supplement composed simply