🔗 Share this article

It stands as the most memorable entrance in film history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, a rookie, proceeds down the line of detention units finally encountering the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. The man is present, appearing as a living skull exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen before suddenly he lunges toward the window, emitting that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless documentaries on serial killers have since shown that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He was not a newcomer when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller in 1989: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar was cemented. The character of Hannibal drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own rigorously precise acting coach Christopher Fettes. Additionally, there existed a paternal-filial aspect to these scenes; a sore point for Hopkins, who recounts how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who disliked him being away and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a plain speaker who detested the religious hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who furiously resented the necessity of going cap-in-hand to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” 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, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically at his new 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 verse, by itself, started his career. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, pursued acting, and shocking his family, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then financial aid was available to go to Rada – a way up for working-class actors. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, which he liked more over theater. And he quit booze during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. A few tales fall a bit flat. He mentions going out for lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who sought to advise him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for him to absorb something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains it's your duty to get there on time, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Indeed. However, he also describes confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A straightforward and sincere nature – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply