🔗 Share this article

Widely regarded as the most memorable introduction in film history – and he remains utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, proceeds down a corridor of cells arriving at the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. There he stands, his face resembling a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move right up until he propels himself toward the window, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar was cemented. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, and on his own strictly demanding acting coach his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a sore point for the actor, who further explains how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to his first wife, who disliked his time away and his alcohol use.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a bread-maker and man's man, a plain speaker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and didn't believe in showing his emotions, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented the way they had to go cap-in-hand to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and could get young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. But one day in a literature class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, started his career. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage with Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days scholarships existed to go to Rada – a path to success for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but lucked into an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, which he preferred over theater. He stopped drinking back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and thus made it into middle age to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of the memoir his character seems more elusive, more calculated. A few tales fall a bit flat. He remembers being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Hardly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it's your duty to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and do the job. Absolutely. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a detailed supplement composed simply