🔗 Share this article

It stands as the most memorable appearance in cinematic history – and he remains without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, proceeds down the line of detention units until she reaches Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, his face resembling a living skull filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen until the moment he lunges against the glass, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly a newcomer when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film in 1989: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar was cemented. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, and also from his rigorously precise acting coach his mentor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a sore point for Hopkins, who also describes how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to his first wife, who disliked his time away and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a pastry chef and man's man, a plain speaker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and avoided expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked the necessity of going begging to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. But one day in a literature class he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other boys. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, launched him. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then there were grants for drama school – an opportunity for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but stumbled upon an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, which he liked more over theater. He gave up alcohol during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He mentions being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who wanted to tell him his portrayal of Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Truly?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes you must to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Quite so. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! 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 yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of Cornwall's speech regarding Kent in King Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A straightforward and sincere nature – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply