🔗 Share this article

It stands as the most iconic introduction in movie lore – while he stands without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, navigates a corridor of cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. There he stands, with features like a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He stands frozen right up until he lunges against the glass, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless real-crime films have since revealed that real-life murderers are often very boring, with nothing resembling the actor's captivating film persona.

He was not a newcomer upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar emerged. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own rigorously precise acting coach Christopher Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a sore point for the actor, who also describes how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret about Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his absences and his drinking habits.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and avoided displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who was angered by the necessity of going humbly to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims during the car ride. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a while. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. But one day in a literature class he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He reasonably claims that verse, by itself, started his career. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then scholarships existed to go to Rada – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in cinema, which he preferred compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and thus made it through midlife to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

During the second part of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He remembers having lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who sought to advise him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Truly?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who thinks it is one's responsibility to be on time, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Indeed. 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 around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply