🔗 Share this article

Many consider it the most iconic entrance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, proceeds down a corridor of cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. The man is present, with features like an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still in his form-fitting prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen right up until he propels himself at the barrier, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not an unknown at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was forged. The character of Hannibal was based, the actor happily remembers in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader as recalled by his daughter, and on his own icily exacting acting coach his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a sore point for Hopkins, who further explains how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who was angered by him being away and his alcohol use.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy hailing from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a baker and a tough individual, a plain speaker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and didn't believe in displaying emotion, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who was angered by how they were forced begging to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves during the car ride. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. However, one day during an English class he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other boys. He reasonably claims that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then scholarships existed to attend Rada – an opportunity for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but fortunately found an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, which he liked more to the stage. And he quit booze during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the latter half of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more calculated. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He recalls having lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who maintains you must to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Indeed. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” He appears to be a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply