We Did OK, Kid: A Memoir by Anthony Hopkins – Insights: A Legend with a Temper

Many consider it the greatest entrance in cinematic history – and he remains utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, must walk the line of detention units arriving at Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, with features like a living skull exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless before suddenly he throws himself against the glass, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since shown that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, far from Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly a newcomer when he landed that Oscar-winning role in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: he was already established, instead, a superstar emerged. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and also from his rigorously precise Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a sore point for the actor, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and drinking.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a direct communicator who detested the religious hypocrites in their community and avoided showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who was angered by how they were forced humbly to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. However, one day in a literature class he was required to perform John Masefield's poem titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He reasonably claims that verse, by itself, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with the great Olivier at the Old Vic within 10 years. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time there were grants to attend Rada – a way up for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and began crying.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but lucked into an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, that he favored compared to stage acting. And he quit booze back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the servant 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 personality becomes more opaque, more studied. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He recalls having lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven by jealousy. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who believes you must to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Quite so. However, he also describes facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply