🔗 Share this article

It stands as the most iconic introduction in movie lore – and he remains utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, must walk a corridor of cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, with features like a living skull filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless until the moment he lunges toward the window, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous real-crime films have since demonstrated that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling the actor's captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly a newcomer upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: he was already established, but a legend was cemented. The character of Hannibal drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own icily exacting acting coach his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect to these scenes; a painful subject for Anthony, who further explains how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who resented his absences and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who detested the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and avoided displaying emotion, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who furiously resented the way they had to go begging to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. However, one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and the other students. He reasonably claims that verse, by itself, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time there were grants for drama school – an opportunity for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but lucked into an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which paved the way to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, that he favored compared to stage acting. He gave up alcohol during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of his autobiography 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 Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who sought to advise him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. Hopkins seems to go along with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Really?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who believes it's your duty to be on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Absolutely. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And develop some respect. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A straightforward and sincere nature – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply