🔗 Share this article

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

The FBI trainee, new to the job, must walk a row of prison cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, with features like a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless right up until he propels himself against the glass, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of real-crime films have since demonstrated that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like the actor's captivating film persona.

He was not a newcomer at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film in 1989: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar emerged. The character of Hannibal drew influence, the actor happily remembers in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own rigorously precise acting coach his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a sore point for Anthony, who also describes how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who resented his absences and his alcohol use.

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 felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a baker and a traditional male, a plain speaker who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and refused to showing his emotions, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who was angered by how they were forced humbly to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. However, one day in an English lesson he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was on stage with Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days scholarships existed to attend Rada – a path to success for working-class actors. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and burst into tears.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but stumbled upon an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he preferred to the stage. And he quit booze back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more calculated. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He recalls going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains it's your duty to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and proceed with the work. Indeed. However, he also describes confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” He appears to be a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply