🔗 Share this article

Many consider it the most iconic appearance in film history – and he remains utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, must walk the line of detention units finally encountering the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. There he stands, with features like an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, chillingly static in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move until the moment he propels himself at the barrier, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of documentaries on serial killers have since shown that actual serial killers are often very boring, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was forged. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, as well as his icily exacting drama teacher Christopher Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a painful subject for the actor, who also describes how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who was angered by him being away and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from an historical picture of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who was angered by how they were forced humbly to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. He was a poor student at his new school. However, one day in a literature class he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem titled 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, started his career. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time financial aid was available for drama school – an opportunity for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and began crying.

Regarding the fiery, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but lucked into a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, which he liked more compared to stage acting. And he quit booze in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into middle age to execute great performances, including 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 next Oscar win.

During the second part of the book his character seems more elusive, more studied. Certain stories aren't entirely successful. He recalls being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who sought to advise him his portrayal of Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Really?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains it is one's responsibility to be on time, remember every crew member's name 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 learn some manners. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! He appears to be a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply