🔗 Share this article

Many consider it the most iconic introduction in cinematic history – yet the actor stays completely still.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, navigates a corridor of cells until she reaches the notorious doctor's transparent prison. He is positioned, appearing as an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless before suddenly he propels himself at the barrier, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless true-crime documentaries have since revealed that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not unrecognized at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film during the late 80s: he was already established, but rather a megastar was forged. The character of Hannibal drew influence, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, as well as his strictly demanding acting coach Christopher Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a painful subject for Hopkins, who also describes how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler 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, the child of Richard Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a baker and man's man, a plain speaker who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and didn't believe in displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who was angered by the necessity of going begging to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and could get young Anthony into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he exclaims during the car ride. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. But one day in a literature class he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He convincingly states that verse, by itself, launched him. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time financial aid was available to attend Rada – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and began crying.

Regarding the fiery, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in cinema, that he favored over theater. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and so survived into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the old 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 aren't entirely successful. He recalls being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Truly?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains it is one's responsibility to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Absolutely. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Say sorry to her! And learn some manners. You ever do that again in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply