🔗 Share this article

It stands as the most iconic entrance in movie lore – and he remains utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, must walk a row of prison cells arriving at Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, with features like a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move right up until he lunges against the glass, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, far from Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar was forged. His portrayal of Lecter was based, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his rigorously precise acting coach his mentor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a sore point for the actor, who also describes how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by him being away and his drinking habits.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and avoided displaying emotion, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who furiously resented the necessity of going cap-in-hand to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. Then, during during an English class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, launched him. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was on stage with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater within 10 years. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time there were grants for drama school – an opportunity for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but lucked into a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, that he favored compared to stage acting. And he quit booze back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it into middle age to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film 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 memoir his character seems more elusive, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He recalls having lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it is one's responsibility to get there on time, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Indeed. But he also recounts facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent in King Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply