🔗 Share this article

It stands as the most memorable introduction in cinematic history – while he stands completely still.

The FBI trainee, new to the job, must walk a row of prison cells until she reaches the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. The man is present, his face resembling a living skull radiating satanic malice, chillingly static wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He remains motionless until the moment he throws himself against the glass, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless documentaries on serial killers have since shown that genuine criminals are often very boring, far from Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly an unknown 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 was forged. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his rigorously precise acting coach his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a sore point for Anthony, who also describes how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s with Petronella Barker, who disliked his absences and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. 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 a tough individual, a plain speaker who detested the religious hypocrites of the chapel and refused to showing his emotions, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented how they were forced cap-in-hand to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. He was a poor student in his new institution. But one day in an English lesson he was required to perform the poem by Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and the other boys. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater within 10 years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days scholarships existed to go to Rada – an opportunity for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but fortunately found an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which eventually resulted to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, which he preferred to the stage. And he quit booze in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and managed to live into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more studied. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He recalls having lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Really?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who maintains you must to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Quite so. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that came with it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a detailed supplement composed simply