🔗 Share this article

Widely regarded as the most iconic appearance in movie lore – while he stands utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, new to the job, navigates a row of prison cells arriving at the notorious doctor's transparent prison. The man is present, his face resembling a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move right up until he propels himself toward the window, emitting that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous real-crime films have since demonstrated that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like the actor's captivating film persona.

He was not an unknown when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was forged. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, the actor happily remembers in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own rigorously precise drama teacher Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a difficult topic for Hopkins, who also describes how his King Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt about Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who disliked him being away and his alcohol use.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy hailing 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 loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and avoided expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who furiously resented the way they had to go cap-in-hand to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves during the car ride. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. Then, during in an English lesson he had to recite the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, started his career. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage with the great Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time scholarships existed to attend Rada – an opportunity for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he departed the theatrical troupe out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but lucked into an excellent television part playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he preferred to the stage. He stopped drinking back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into middle age to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of the book his character seems more elusive, more studied. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He recalls going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Truly?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who thinks it is one's responsibility to get there on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Indeed. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply