🔗 Share this article

Many consider it the greatest introduction in cinematic history – and he remains without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, must walk a row of prison cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, his face resembling a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, chillingly static in his form-fitting prisoner's blue outfit. He remains motionless until the moment he propels himself at the barrier, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since shown that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly an unknown upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but a legend was cemented. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, as well as his strictly demanding acting coach Christopher Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a difficult topic for the actor, who recounts how his King Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt about Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who was angered by his absences and his alcohol use.

The title originates from an historical picture of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a baker and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who loathed the religious hypocrites in their community and avoided showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented how they were forced begging to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. But one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He convincingly states that poems, alone, started his career. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated without much hope, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then there were grants to go to Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. 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 retreated to another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but fortunately found a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in cinema, that he favored to the stage. And he quit booze in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived through midlife to execute great performances, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. Certain stories aren't entirely successful. He mentions going out for lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, 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 from Goodfellas? Hardly. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Truly?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains it's your duty to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Indeed. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink 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 does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply