🔗 Share this article

Many consider it the most memorable introduction in movie lore – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, must walk the line of detention units finally encountering Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, with features like an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move before suddenly he lunges against the glass, emitting that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous real-crime films have since demonstrated that real-life murderers are often very boring, lacking anything like the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not an unknown at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was forged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on Joseph Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and on his own icily exacting drama teacher Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a painful subject for the actor, who also describes how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who resented his absences and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler on the beach with his dad – 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 in this story: a bread-maker and man's man, a direct communicator who detested the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and didn't believe in displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who was angered by the way they had to go humbly to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. However, one day in an English lesson he had to recite the poem by Masefield The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and the other boys. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, launched him. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated without much hope, entered the acting world, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then financial aid was available to attend Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, which he preferred compared to stage acting. And he quit booze in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into middle age to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of the memoir he appears more reserved, more deliberate. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He remembers going out for lunch by his co-star in the film Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who sought to advise him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Truly?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who thinks it's your duty to be on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Indeed. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. You ever do that again 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 came with it. An actor of his caliber must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply