🔗 Share this article

Many consider it the greatest entrance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, proceeds down a row of prison cells finally encountering the notorious doctor's transparent prison. The man is present, with features like an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless before suddenly he propels himself toward the window, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since shown that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, far from Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He wasn't exactly an unknown when he landed that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar emerged. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own rigorously precise Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a painful subject for the actor, who also describes how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his failed first union during the 60s with Petronella Barker, who disliked 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 boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in this story: a baker and a traditional male, a plain speaker who despised the religious hypocrites at the church and avoided displaying emotion, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented how they were forced humbly to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. However, one day in a literature class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, started his career. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing with the great Olivier at the famous theater within 10 years. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then financial aid was available for drama school – a path to success for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but fortunately found a memorable TV character playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, that he favored over theater. He gave up alcohol during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He mentions going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Really?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who maintains you must to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Absolutely. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply