🔗 Share this article

It stands as the greatest entrance in movie lore – while he stands completely still.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, proceeds down a corridor of cells until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, appearing as a living skull exuding demonic evil, chillingly static wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen right up until he propels himself toward the window, emitting that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. A multitude of real-crime films have since shown that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, far from Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but a legend was cemented. His Dr. Lecter was based, the actor happily remembers in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own icily exacting drama teacher Christopher Fettes. There was also a paternal-filial aspect to these scenes; a sore point for Anthony, who further explains how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and drinking.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a bread-maker and man's man, a plain speaker who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and refused to showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the way they had to go cap-in-hand to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. He was a poor student in his new institution. However, one day during an English class he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then there were grants for drama school – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but fortunately found a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, that he favored over theater. He stopped drinking back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of the book he appears more reserved, more studied. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He remembers going out for lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who sought to advise him his portrayal of Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for him to absorb something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting due to resentment. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who thinks it is one's responsibility to be on time, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Quite so. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. An actor of his caliber is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply