🔗 Share this article

Widely regarded as the greatest entrance in film history – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, must walk a row of prison cells arriving at Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, his face resembling an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He remains motionless before suddenly he throws himself at the barrier, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: he was already established, but a legend was cemented. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and also from his rigorously precise acting coach his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a sore point for the actor, who also describes how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time away and his drinking habits.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the kid who maybe thought he wouldn't succeed. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in this story: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a direct communicator who detested the religious hypocrites at the church and refused to expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who was angered by the way they had to go cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. Then, during in an English lesson he was required to perform the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and the other boys. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, entered the acting world, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then there were grants to attend Rada – an opportunity for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and burst into tears.

Regarding the fiery, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, which he preferred over theater. And he quit booze during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and thus made it into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of the memoir he appears more reserved, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He remembers having lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for him to absorb something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who thinks it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Indeed. However, he also describes confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply