🔗 Share this article

It stands as the greatest appearance in movie lore – and he remains completely still.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, navigates a row of prison cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, with features like a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move before suddenly he propels himself at the barrier, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's commanding screen presence.

He was not an unknown when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar was forged. His portrayal of Lecter drew influence, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own strictly demanding Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a painful subject for Hopkins, who recounts how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who disliked his absences and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and refused to expressing his feelings, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked the way they had to go humbly to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he shouts while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a while. He was a poor student in his new institution. But one day in a literature class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he amazed the instructor and the other boys. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, entered the acting world, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then scholarships existed for drama school – an opportunity for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but stumbled upon an excellent television part playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, which he liked more to the stage. He stopped drinking in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of the book he appears more reserved, more calculated. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He remembers going out for lunch with his fellow actor in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Really?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes it's your duty to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Absolutely. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply