🔗 Share this article

Widely regarded as the greatest entrance in film history – while he stands without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, proceeds down the line of detention units arriving at the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, appearing as an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move until the moment he lunges toward the window, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since shown that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, far from Hopkins' captivating film persona.

He was not an unknown upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film during the late 80s: he was already established, instead, a superstar was forged. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his strictly demanding acting coach his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a difficult topic for Anthony, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt about Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented his absences and his drinking habits.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a pastry chef and man's man, a plain speaker who detested the religious hypocrites at the church and refused to showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who deeply disliked the way they had to go cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. But one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, propelled him forward. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with the great Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days scholarships existed for drama school – an opportunity for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but fortunately found an excellent television part playing an alleged war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in cinema, that he favored to the stage. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and thus made it through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He remembers having lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Is that so?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains you must to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Indeed. However, he also describes facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! 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 yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply