🔗 Share this article

Widely regarded as the most memorable entrance in film history – and he remains completely still.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, navigates a row of prison cells finally encountering the notorious doctor's transparent prison. He is positioned, with features like a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He stands frozen before suddenly he propels himself against the glass, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that actual serial killers are often very boring, with nothing resembling Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but a legend was forged. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader as recalled by his daughter, and on his own icily exacting Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a sore point for Anthony, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who resented his absences and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph 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, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a baker and man's man, a straightforward talker who detested the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and refused to showing his emotions, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who was angered by the way they had to go humbly to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. He was a poor student in his new institution. However, one day during an English class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and the other students. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, although in those days financial aid was available for drama school – a path to success for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but fortunately found a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, which he liked more compared to stage acting. He gave up alcohol in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and so survived through midlife to execute great performances, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the latter half of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more deliberate. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He recalls going out for lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains it is one's responsibility to be on time, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Indeed. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply