🔗 Share this article

Many consider it the most iconic appearance in cinematic history – while he stands completely still.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, must walk a corridor of cells arriving at Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, with features like a living skull exuding demonic evil, chillingly static in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless before suddenly he lunges against the glass, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since revealed that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, far from Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar emerged. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his rigorously precise drama teacher Christopher Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a sore point for the actor, who further explains how his Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret about Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who resented his time away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a baker and man's man, a plain speaker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and refused to displaying emotion, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the necessity of going cap-in-hand to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. But one day in a literature class he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Notably, he graduated without much hope, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then financial aid was available to go to Rada – a way up for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but fortunately found a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which paved the way to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, which he preferred to the stage. And he quit booze during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in The Father – his second Academy Award.

During the second part of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more calculated. A few tales fall a bit flat. He remembers going out for lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Truly?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it's your duty to get there on time, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Indeed. But he also recounts facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” He appears to be someone who gave up drink but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. A Shakespearean like him must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply