🔗 Share this article

It stands as the greatest appearance in movie lore – while he stands utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, must walk the line of detention units until she reaches the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. The man is present, his face resembling an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move until the moment he lunges against the glass, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that real-life murderers are often very boring, lacking anything like Hopkins' captivating film persona.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar emerged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, 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 drama teacher his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a painful subject for Hopkins, who further explains how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his absences and drinking.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a baker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and avoided displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the necessity of going cap-in-hand to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, temporarily. He was a poor student at his new school. Then, during in an English lesson he had to recite John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and the other boys. He reasonably claims that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated with low prospects, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time there were grants to attend Rada – a way up for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but fortunately found a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, which he liked more compared to stage acting. And he quit booze in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He mentions being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for him to absorb something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Is that so?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and proceed with the work. Absolutely. However, he also describes confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply