🔗 Share this article

Many consider it the most iconic introduction in film history – and he remains completely still.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, must walk a corridor of cells until she reaches the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. The man is present, appearing as a living skull filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He remains motionless right up until he throws himself against the glass, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since revealed that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like the actor's captivating film persona.

He was not a newcomer upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar was cemented. The character of Hannibal was inspired, the actor happily remembers in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader as recalled by his daughter, as well as his icily exacting acting coach his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a painful subject for Hopkins, who also describes how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who was angered by him being 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 boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a bread-maker and man's man, a straightforward talker who loathed the religious hypocrites at the church and avoided showing his emotions, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented the way they had to go cap-in-hand to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims during the car ride. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. He was a poor student in his new institution. But one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then there were grants to attend Rada – a way up for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but fortunately found an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, which he liked more compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and so survived through midlife to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He mentions being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Is that so?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who thinks you must to be on time, remember every crew member's name and proceed with the work. Quite so. However, he also describes facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And learn some manners. 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 yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply