🔗 Share this article

It stands as the most memorable appearance in film history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, must walk a row of prison cells arriving at Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, with features like an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He stands frozen before suddenly he lunges at the barrier, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless documentaries on serial killers have since shown that actual serial killers are often very boring, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar emerged. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his icily exacting acting coach his instructor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a painful subject for the actor, who also describes how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his absences and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in this story: a baker and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who detested the religious hypocrites of the chapel and avoided showing his emotions, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who was angered by the necessity of going begging to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and was able to secure young Anthony into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, for a time. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. But 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 amazed the instructor and the other boys. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days scholarships existed to attend Rada – a path to success for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but fortunately found a memorable TV character playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, that he favored compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and managed to live into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the latter half of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He remembers being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. He tends to concur with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Truly?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who believes it's your duty to get there on time, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Absolutely. However, he also describes confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. An actor of his caliber is aware of Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply