🔗 Share this article

Widely regarded as the greatest introduction in film history – and he remains completely still.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, navigates a corridor of cells finally encountering Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. There he stands, appearing as a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless until the moment he lunges at the barrier, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that genuine criminals are often very boring, with nothing resembling the actor's commanding screen presence.

He was not an unknown when he landed that Oscar-winning role in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but a legend was forged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his strictly demanding drama teacher his mentor Fettes. There was also a paternal-filial aspect to these scenes; a painful subject for the actor, who also describes how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret about Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented his absences and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in this story: a baker and a tough individual, a plain speaker who detested the religious hypocrites of the chapel and avoided showing his emotions, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who deeply disliked the way they had to go begging to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and could get young Anthony into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. But one day during an English class he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other boys. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, started his career. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, went into acting, and shocking his family, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time there were grants to attend Rada – a path to success for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe by his son's international fame: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in cinema, that he favored compared to stage acting. And he quit booze during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and managed to live into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of the book he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He recalls having lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who wanted to tell him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Really?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it's your duty to get there on time, know all the crew's names and proceed with the work. Quite so. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And learn some manners. You ever do that again in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with a detailed supplement composed simply