🔗 Share this article

Many consider it the greatest appearance in film history – while he stands completely still.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, navigates a row of prison cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, appearing as a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move before suddenly he lunges against the glass, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since shown that genuine criminals are often very boring, far from Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar emerged. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, as well as his icily exacting Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a sore point for Anthony, who also describes how his Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union in 1966 to his first wife, who was angered by his absences and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He appeared lost, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a baker and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who despised the religious hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who was angered by the way they had to go begging to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he shouts while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. He was a poor student in his new institution. However, one day during an English class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He convincingly states that poems, alone, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated with low prospects, entered the acting world, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage with the great Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time financial aid was available to go to Rada – a path to success for working-class actors. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and burst into tears.

Regarding the fiery, stubborn individual, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but lucked into an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which paved the way to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, that he favored to the stage. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of the memoir he appears more reserved, more studied. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He mentions going out for lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for him to absorb something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Truly?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who thinks it's your duty to be on time, know all the crew's names and proceed with the work. Absolutely. But he also recounts facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply