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

Widely regarded as the greatest appearance in movie lore – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, must walk a row of prison cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. He is positioned, his face resembling a living skull radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile in his form-fitting prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen right up until he propels himself at the barrier, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous real-crime films have since revealed that actual serial killers are often very boring, far from the actor's commanding screen presence.

He was not a newcomer when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: he was already established, but a legend was forged. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, as well as his strictly demanding Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a painful subject for the actor, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who was angered by his absences and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a plain speaker who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented how they were forced begging to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and was able to secure young Anthony into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. He was a poor student in his new institution. However, one day during an English class he had to recite the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, started his career. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, went into acting, and shocking his family, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time financial aid was available for drama school – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and burst into tears.

Regarding the fiery, strong-willed son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but lucked into a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he liked more over theater. He stopped drinking back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live 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 senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of the memoir he appears more reserved, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He recalls going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven by jealousy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it's your duty to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Quite so. But he also recounts facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply