🔗 Share this article

Widely regarded as the greatest appearance in cinematic history – while he stands without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, new to the job, proceeds down the line of detention units until she reaches the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, appearing as an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless until the moment he lunges toward the window, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since shown that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, far from Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly an unknown when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film back in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was cemented. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own strictly demanding Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a sore point for the actor, who recounts how his King Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time away and his alcohol use.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he would never do OK. He appeared lost, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a baker and man's man, a straightforward talker who loathed the religious hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in showing his emotions, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who deeply disliked how they were forced begging to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves during the car ride. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. However, one day in an English lesson he was required to perform John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and the other students. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, launched him. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days there were grants to attend Rada – a path to success for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he departed the theatrical troupe out of frustration – 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 David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he liked more compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and thus made it through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of the book his character seems more elusive, more studied. A few tales fall a bit flat. He mentions going out for lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. He tends to concur with the director's criticism that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Is that so?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes you must to be on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Absolutely. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply