🔗 Share this article

It stands as the most memorable introduction in movie lore – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, must walk the line of detention units until she reaches the notorious doctor's transparent prison. There he stands, with features like a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move until the moment he throws himself at the barrier, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless true-crime documentaries have since revealed that real-life murderers are often very boring, with nothing resembling the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film back in 1989: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar was forged. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his icily exacting Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a sore point for Anthony, who recounts how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who was angered by his time away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of Hopkins as a toddler on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who despised the religious hypocrites of the chapel and avoided showing his emotions, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who deeply disliked how they were forced begging to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. Then, during in a literature class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, started his career. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time scholarships existed to attend Rada – an opportunity for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and began crying.

Regarding the fiery, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but lucked into a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, that he favored to the stage. He stopped drinking in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and so survived into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He recalls being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in the film Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Truly?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains it's your duty to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and do the job. Absolutely. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologize to that girl! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! He appears to be a person who quit alcohol 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! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a detailed supplement composed simply