🔗 Share this article

It stands as the most iconic appearance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, must walk a row of prison cells arriving at Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, appearing as a living skull radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He remains motionless before suddenly he lunges toward the window, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since revealed that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's commanding screen presence.

He was not a newcomer upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller in 1989: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar emerged. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and on his own strictly demanding acting coach his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a sore point for Hopkins, who also describes how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s with Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a direct communicator who despised the religious hypocrites in their community and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who was angered by how they were forced humbly to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. Then, during in an English lesson he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and the other students. He reasonably claims that verse, by itself, started his career. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days financial aid was available to go to Rada – a path to success for working-class actors. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, that he favored compared to stage acting. And he quit booze in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and managed to live through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more studied. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He mentions going out for lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who believes you must to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Quite so. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply