🔗 Share this article

Widely regarded as the most memorable introduction in film history – while he stands without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, must walk a corridor of cells until she reaches the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, with features like an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen right up until he lunges at the barrier, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since shown that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film back in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar emerged. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his icily exacting drama teacher his mentor Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a sore point for the actor, who also describes how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage during the 60s with Petronella Barker, who resented his time away and his drinking habits.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a baker and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who detested the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and avoided showing his emotions, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the necessity of going cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. However, one day during an English class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his talent emerged; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He convincingly states that poems, alone, propelled him forward. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic within 10 years. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time scholarships existed for drama school – a way up for working-class actors. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to roles such as in the film The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, which he preferred over theater. He gave up alcohol in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and thus made it into his later years to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He recalls going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for him to absorb something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Really?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and proceed with the work. Indeed. However, he also describes facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply