🔗 Share this article

Widely regarded as the greatest introduction in film history – and he remains completely still.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, must walk a corridor of cells arriving at Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, appearing as a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, chillingly static in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move right up until he propels himself toward the window, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since shown that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, far from the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly a newcomer upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar was forged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and also from his icily exacting acting coach his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a painful subject for Anthony, who recounts how his Lear was indirectly affected by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time away and drinking.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who despised the religious hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who deeply disliked the way they had to go cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and could get young Anthony into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves during the car ride. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. Then, during during an English class he had to recite the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Notably, he graduated with low prospects, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, although in those days there were grants for drama school – a path to success for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but fortunately found an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, which he liked more to the stage. And he quit booze during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and so survived into middle age to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He mentions being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for him to absorb something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting due to resentment. Really?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes it is one's responsibility to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Indeed. But he also recounts facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply