🔗 Share this article

Widely regarded as the most iconic entrance in cinematic history – and he remains completely still.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, must walk a row of prison cells until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, with features like a living skull radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless right up until he throws himself against the glass, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that genuine criminals are often very boring, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller during the late 80s: he was already established, but a legend was cemented. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his icily exacting Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a painful subject for Hopkins, who recounts how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage back in 1966 to his first wife, who resented him being away and drinking.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in this story: a bread-maker and man's man, a plain speaker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and refused to showing his emotions, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented the necessity of going begging to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. However, one day during an English class he had to recite John Masefield's poem titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and the other students. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time scholarships existed for drama school – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but lucked into a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, that he favored over theater. He gave up alcohol back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and so survived into his later years to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He recalls being taken out to lunch by his co-star in the film Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for him to absorb something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Really?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who thinks it's your duty to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Indeed. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! And develop some respect. Should you ever act that way in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! He appears to be a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply