🔗 Share this article

Many consider it the most memorable entrance in movie lore – while he stands completely still.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, proceeds down a row of prison cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, his face resembling a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen before suddenly he propels himself toward the window, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, far from Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not an unknown when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: he was already established, but a legend was forged. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on Joseph Stalin according to his daughter's memories, as well as his icily exacting drama teacher his instructor Fettes. There was also a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a sore point for Anthony, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and his alcohol use.

The title originates from an historical picture of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who furiously resented the way they had to go humbly to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. He was a poor student at his new school. But one day in a literature class he had to recite the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and the other boys. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, launched him. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage with the great Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then scholarships existed for drama school – an opportunity for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: on asking 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.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but fortunately found a great TV role as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, that he favored to the stage. And he quit booze in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. Certain stories aren't entirely successful. He mentions being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven by jealousy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who thinks it is one's responsibility to be on time, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Quite so. However, he also describes facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “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! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply