🔗 Share this article

Widely regarded as the greatest entrance in cinematic history – and he remains without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, navigates the line of detention units until she reaches Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, with features like an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move until the moment he lunges at the barrier, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of real-crime films have since demonstrated that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar was cemented. The character of Hannibal was based, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, as well as his rigorously precise drama teacher his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a sore point for Anthony, who recounts how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time away and drinking.

The title originates from an historical picture of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and refused to expressing his feelings, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who was angered by how they were forced begging to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and could get young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims during the car ride. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, for a time. He was a poor student in his new institution. But one day in a literature class he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, started his career. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated with low prospects, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting with the great Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then financial aid was available to attend Rada – an opportunity for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and burst into tears.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but lucked into an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, that he favored compared to stage acting. And he quit booze in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. Certain stories aren't entirely successful. He remembers being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven by jealousy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who believes it is one's responsibility to be on time, know all the crew's names and proceed with the work. Quite so. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And learn some manners. You ever do that again in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. A Shakespearean like him must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply