🔗 Share this article

It stands as the greatest appearance in film history – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, must walk the line of detention units finally encountering the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. He is positioned, appearing as a living skull radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile in his form-fitting prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move right up until he lunges against the glass, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since shown that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, far from Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly a newcomer upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: he was already established, but a legend was cemented. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, as well as his strictly demanding Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a painful subject for the actor, who recounts how his Lear was indirectly affected by deep-seated remorse regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and his drinking habits.

The title originates from an historical picture of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a baker and man's man, a straightforward talker who detested the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and avoided showing his emotions, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the necessity of going cap-in-hand to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and was able to secure young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. Then, during during an English class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was on stage with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days scholarships existed for drama school – an opportunity for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but lucked into a great TV role as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in cinema, which he preferred over theater. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into middle age to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

During the second part of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He remembers being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with the director's criticism that Sorvino was acting due to resentment. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who maintains you must to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and proceed with the work. Indeed. However, he also describes facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply