🔗 Share this article

Many consider it the most iconic introduction in film history – while he stands utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, must walk the line of detention units until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. He is positioned, with features like a living skull filled with sinister intent, chillingly static wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move right up until he lunges against the glass, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. A multitude of real-crime films have since demonstrated that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, far from the actor's commanding screen presence.

He was not a newcomer at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar was cemented. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his strictly demanding drama teacher his instructor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a painful subject for Hopkins, who recounts how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his failed first union during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He appeared lost, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a plain speaker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and refused to displaying emotion, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented the necessity of going humbly to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. However, one day during an English class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, launched him. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater within 10 years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days scholarships existed for drama school – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but lucked into a memorable TV character as a suspected 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 movies, which he preferred to the stage. He gave up alcohol during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into his later years to execute great performances, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He remembers going out for lunch by his co-star in the film Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Really?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who thinks it is one's responsibility to be on time, know all the crew's names and proceed with the work. Indeed. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director 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!” Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A straightforward and sincere nature – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply