🔗 Share this article

It stands as the greatest introduction in movie lore – and he remains utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, proceeds down a corridor of cells arriving at the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. There he stands, with features like a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen until the moment he propels himself at the barrier, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless real-crime films have since shown that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly a newcomer at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in the 1991 thriller in 1989: he was already established, but a legend emerged. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, the actor happily remembers in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own rigorously precise acting coach his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a painful subject for the actor, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who disliked his absences and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the kid who maybe thought he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a plain speaker who detested the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who was angered by the necessity of going humbly to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. Then, during in a literature class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and the other boys. He convincingly states that poems, alone, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage with the great Olivier at the famous theater within 10 years. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then there were grants for drama school – a path to success for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but fortunately found a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, that he favored compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. Certain stories aren't entirely successful. He recalls being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Really?

He consistently acts as the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who thinks it is one's responsibility to get there on time, know all the crew's names and proceed with the work. Indeed. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply