🔗 Share this article

Many consider it the most iconic 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 transparent prison. He is positioned, appearing as a living skull filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He remains motionless before suddenly he lunges at the barrier, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like the actor's commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar emerged. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own icily exacting acting coach his mentor Fettes. There was also a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a difficult topic for the actor, who recounts how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage during the 60s to 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 child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a baker and man's man, a direct communicator who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and refused to expressing his feelings, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who furiously resented the necessity of going begging to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The humility worked, for a time. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. Then, during in an English lesson he had to recite John Masefield's poem The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, went into acting, and shocking his family, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then scholarships existed to attend Rada – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and began crying.

Regarding the fiery, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but fortunately found an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, that he favored over theater. And he quit booze back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward 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 memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He remembers going out for lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes it is one's responsibility to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Absolutely. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that 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 went with it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A straightforward and sincere nature – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply