🔗 Share this article

It stands as the most iconic appearance in movie lore – while he stands without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, new to the job, navigates a row of prison cells finally encountering the notorious doctor's transparent prison. He is positioned, appearing as a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move right up until he propels himself against the glass, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that genuine criminals are often very boring, lacking anything like the actor's commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar emerged. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own strictly demanding acting coach Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a difficult topic for the actor, who also describes how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret about Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented his absences and his alcohol use.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a plain speaker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the necessity of going cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. However, one day in an English lesson he was required to perform the poem by Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He convincingly states that verse, by itself, launched him. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, went into acting, and shocking his family, was on stage with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic within 10 years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days scholarships existed to attend Rada – an opportunity for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but lucked into a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in cinema, which he preferred over theater. He stopped drinking in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it through midlife to execute great performances, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of the book his character seems more elusive, more studied. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He mentions having lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not really. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Really?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who thinks you must to get there on time, know all the crew's names and do the job. Quite so. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! 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 came with it. A Shakespearean like him must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply