🔗 Share this article

Widely regarded as the most memorable appearance in cinematic history – and he remains without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, navigates a row of prison cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. He is positioned, appearing as an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, chillingly static in his form-fitting prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen right up until he throws himself at the barrier, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's commanding screen presence.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: he was already established, but a legend emerged. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his icily exacting drama teacher Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a painful subject for Anthony, who also describes how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who resented him being away and his drinking habits.

The title originates from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a baker and man's man, a straightforward talker who detested the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and avoided displaying emotion, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who was angered by how they were forced begging to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. Then, during in a literature class he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated without much hope, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days scholarships existed to go to Rada – a path to success for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: upon requesting 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.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but lucked into an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, that he favored over theater. He stopped drinking back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and thus made it through midlife to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He recalls having lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting due to resentment. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes it's your duty to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Absolutely. However, he also describes confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And learn some manners. You ever do that again in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply