🔗 Share this article

Many consider it the greatest entrance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays completely still.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, navigates a row of prison cells finally encountering the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, his face resembling an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, chillingly static clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move right up until he lunges against the glass, emitting that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not a newcomer when he landed that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar was forged. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own strictly demanding Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. There was also a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a painful subject for Hopkins, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who disliked him being away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who detested the religious hypocrites in their community and avoided showing his emotions, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked the way they had to go begging to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. Then, during in a literature class he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He reasonably claims that poetry, on its own, started his career. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was performing with the great Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days financial aid was available to go to Rada – a path to success for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and burst into tears.

Regarding the fiery, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but lucked into an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, which he preferred over theater. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. A few tales fall a bit flat. He remembers going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Hardly. He tends to concur with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven by jealousy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains it is one's responsibility to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Absolutely. Yet he also tells 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!” Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply