🔗 Share this article

Widely regarded as the greatest introduction in cinematic history – while he stands utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, new to the job, navigates a corridor of cells finally encountering the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, with features like an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move right up until he throws himself at the barrier, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that actual serial killers are often very boring, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He was not a newcomer upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar emerged. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, and on his own icily exacting Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a sore point for the actor, who further explains how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by him being away 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 couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a plain speaker who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and refused to expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who furiously resented the way they had to go humbly to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts during the car ride. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. But one day during an English class he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and the other boys. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days scholarships existed to go to Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but lucked into a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, which he preferred over theater. And he quit booze during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

During the second part of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more calculated. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He recalls being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes you must to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Absolutely. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And develop some respect. Should you ever act that way in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A straightforward and sincere nature – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply