🔗 Share this article

Many consider it the most iconic entrance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays completely still.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, proceeds down a corridor of cells arriving at the notorious doctor's transparent prison. He is positioned, with features like an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, chillingly static wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move until the moment he throws himself at the barrier, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since shown that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling Hopkins' captivating film persona.

He was not a newcomer when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller during the late 80s: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar was cemented. His portrayal of Lecter drew influence, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his rigorously precise acting coach his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect to these scenes; a sore point for Hopkins, who recounts how his Lear was indirectly affected by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his failed first union back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who disliked him being away and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a pastry chef and man's man, a straightforward talker who detested the religious hypocrites of the chapel and avoided showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who was angered by the necessity of going humbly to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. Then, during in an English lesson he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and the other students. He convincingly states that poems, alone, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then scholarships existed to attend Rada – a way up for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which paved the way to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, that he favored over theater. He stopped drinking back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live into middle age to execute great performances, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of the book his character seems more elusive, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He remembers being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with the director's criticism that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes it is one's responsibility to get there on time, know all the crew's names and proceed with the work. Absolutely. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply