🔗 Share this article

It stands as the greatest introduction in film history – and he remains completely still.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, proceeds down a corridor of cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, with features like a living skull exuding demonic evil, chillingly static wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen until the moment he throws himself at the barrier, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since shown that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar emerged. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, as well as his icily exacting Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. There was also a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a difficult topic for Anthony, who also describes how his Lear was indirectly affected by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time away and drinking.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a pastry chef and man's man, a plain speaker who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and avoided displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented the necessity of going humbly to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. But one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He convincingly states that poems, alone, propelled him forward. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, pursued acting, and shocking his family, was acting with the great Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days there were grants to go to Rada – a path to success for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but fortunately found an excellent television part playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, that he favored over theater. And he quit booze during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the latter half of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He mentions having lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for him to absorb something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains it's your duty to get there on time, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Absolutely. However, he also describes confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A straightforward and sincere nature – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply