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

Widely regarded as the most memorable introduction in film history – while he stands without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, navigates a corridor of cells arriving at Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, with features like a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move until the moment he throws himself against the glass, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless documentaries on serial killers have since shown that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like the actor's captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly a newcomer upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film back in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar emerged. The character of Hannibal drew influence, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin according to his daughter's memories, as well as his icily exacting acting coach his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a sore point for the actor, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret about Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union during the 60s with Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and his drinking habits.

The book's name comes 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 would never do OK. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child hailing from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a bread-maker and man's man, a plain speaker who detested the religious hypocrites in their community and avoided displaying emotion, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented how they were forced humbly to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. However, one day in a literature class he had to recite John Masefield's poem The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He reasonably claims that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated without much hope, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing with the great Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then financial aid was available to attend Rada – a path to success for working-class actors. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but stumbled upon an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which eventually resulted to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, that he favored over theater. And he quit booze back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of the book his character seems more elusive, more calculated. Certain stories aren't entirely successful. He recalls being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains you must to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Absolutely. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that came with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply