In 1992, Francis Ford Coppola directed Bram Stoker’s Dracula , starring Gary Oldman as the alluring vampire and Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing, his stake-toting nemesis. At the time, Hopkins was fresh off his Oscar-winning performance as another legendary monster: Dr. Hannibal Lecter in 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs — but he was a Dracula fan going back decades. In his new memoir, We Did OK, Kid , Hopkins looks back at his long career, including the role that would launch a thousand Halloween costumes and fava bean jokes.

A book excerpt published by the British newspaper the Times takes on a period in Hopkins’ career that all horror fans are curious about: when he came aboard Jonathan Demme’s serial-killer thriller and crafted his indelible take on Lecter. He only read 1

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