🔗 Share this article

It stands as the most iconic entrance in cinematic history – and he remains without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, navigates a corridor of cells arriving at the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. There he stands, appearing as an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move until the moment he lunges toward the window, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless real-crime films have since revealed that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like the actor's captivating film persona.

He was not an unknown at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in the 1991 thriller during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar was cemented. His Dr. Lecter was based, the actor happily remembers in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, as well as his icily exacting acting coach Christopher Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a sore point for Anthony, who recounts how his Lear was indirectly affected by deep-seated remorse regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his failed first union during the 60s to his first wife, who disliked his time away and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from a vintage war-era photograph 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, the child of Richard Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who detested the religious hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented the necessity of going cap-in-hand to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. However, one day in a literature class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he stunned the teacher and the other boys. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated with low prospects, went into acting, and shocking his family, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days financial aid was available for drama school – an opportunity for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but lucked into a memorable TV character playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, which he preferred compared to stage acting. And he quit booze during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He remembers being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Not really. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Really?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains you must to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Quite so. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A straightforward and sincere nature – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply