Sir Anthony – who has been nominated for an Academy Award six times, winning twice, including for his role as Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs – has written his own music since childhood, and began playing piano aged four.
He studied acting at Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff because it had a music school.
“A few years later, I was in a film with Peter O’Toole and Audrey Hepburn.
“It doesn’t make any sense at all.”
One of his new compositions, he said, came from a time he had remembered living on Bracken Road in Port Talbot and his mother had made him lemon curd sandwiches.
“We didn’t have anything at all.
“I remember I could see right across to the moors and the sea.
“And I remember the stillness, the sound of flies and distant cattle and distant traffic.
“I remember that afternoon with my lemon curd sandwich and that’s all I remember, but I remember it so indelibly, the feeling of it.”