🔗 Share this article

Many consider it the most memorable appearance in movie lore – and he remains completely still.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, proceeds down a corridor of cells arriving at Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. There he stands, appearing as an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen right up until he throws himself at the barrier, emitting that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since revealed that real-life murderers are often very boring, far from Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar was cemented. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on Joseph Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and also from his rigorously precise acting coach his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a sore point for Hopkins, who also describes how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to his first wife, who resented his absences and drinking.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a baker and a tough individual, a plain speaker who loathed the religious hypocrites in their community and avoided displaying emotion, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the necessity of going humbly to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. He was a poor student at his new school. Then, during in a literature class he had to recite the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, started his career. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time scholarships existed for drama school – a way up for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe 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, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but stumbled upon an excellent television part playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, that he favored to the stage. He gave up alcohol in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of the memoir he appears more reserved, more calculated. A few tales fall a bit flat. He remembers having lunch with his fellow actor in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Really?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it is one's responsibility to get there on time, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Indeed. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. Should you ever act that way 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 classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply