🔗 Share this article

It stands as the greatest entrance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, navigates the line of detention units finally encountering the notorious doctor's transparent prison. The man is present, his face resembling a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He remains motionless right up until he throws himself at the barrier, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of real-crime films have since shown that actual serial killers are often very boring, lacking anything like Hopkins' captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar was forged. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his icily exacting Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a sore point for the actor, who recounts how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who disliked his time away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a baker and a tough individual, a direct communicator who despised the religious hypocrites of the chapel and didn't believe in 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 affluent family members including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. However, one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other boys. He reasonably claims that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time there were grants to go to Rada – an opportunity for actors from humble backgrounds. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and began crying.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but fortunately found an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which paved the way to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in cinema, which he preferred to the stage. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of the memoir his character seems more elusive, more calculated. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He mentions having lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it's your duty to get there on time, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Quite so. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And learn some manners. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply