🔗 Share this article

Many consider it the most iconic introduction in film history – while he stands utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, a rookie, must walk the line of detention units finally encountering the notorious doctor's transparent prison. The man is present, with features like a living skull filled with sinister intent, chillingly static clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless right up until he lunges at the barrier, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since revealed that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not a newcomer upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: he was already established, but rather a megastar was cemented. His portrayal of Lecter drew influence, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader as recalled by his daughter, as well as his strictly demanding Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a painful subject for Anthony, who also describes how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who resented him being away and drinking.

The book's name comes from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a baker and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and refused to showing his emotions, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the way they had to go cap-in-hand to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, for a time. He was a poor student at his new school. However, one day during an English class he had to recite the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other boys. He reasonably claims that verse, by itself, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated without much hope, pursued acting, and shocking his family, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic within 10 years. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then financial aid was available to attend Rada – an opportunity for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but lucked into a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, which he liked more compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and thus made it through midlife to execute great performances, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more deliberate. A few tales fall a bit flat. He recalls having lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who wanted to tell him his portrayal of Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Hardly. He tends to concur with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who thinks it's your duty to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Quite so. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply