🔗 Share this article

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

A young FBI agent, a rookie, must walk a row of prison cells arriving at Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, his face resembling a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move right up until he lunges at the barrier, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless real-crime films have since revealed that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, far from Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly an unknown at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar was cemented. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, as well as his rigorously precise drama teacher his instructor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a difficult topic for the actor, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 to his first wife, who was angered by his time away and his alcohol use.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a baker and man's man, a plain speaker who detested the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and refused to showing his emotions, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who furiously resented how they were forced humbly to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. He was a poor student in his new institution. However, one day during an English class he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, launched him. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days financial aid was available to attend Rada – a path to success 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, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, strong-willed son, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but lucked into a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, which he preferred over theater. He gave up alcohol back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He mentions being taken out to lunch by his co-star in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who sought to advise him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Not really. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains you must to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Indeed. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologize to that girl! And learn some manners. Should you ever act that way near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply