🔗 Share this article

Widely regarded as the greatest introduction in movie lore – while he stands completely still.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, must walk the line of detention units until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, with features like a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, chillingly static in his form-fitting prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move right up until he lunges toward the window, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since revealed that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, far from Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller during the late 80s: he was already established, but rather a megastar was cemented. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own rigorously precise Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a sore point for the actor, who also describes how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage during the 60s with Petronella Barker, who resented his time away and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in this story: a bread-maker and man's man, a plain speaker who detested the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who furiously resented the way they had to go humbly to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and was able to secure young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. Then, during in an English lesson he had to recite the verse by John Masefield The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and the other boys. He convincingly states that verse, by itself, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, although in those days scholarships existed to go to Rada – a path to success for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but lucked into a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, that he favored compared to stage acting. He gave up alcohol back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of the memoir his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He mentions being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Really?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains you must to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Quite so. But he also recounts facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply