Anthony Hopkins' Memoir: We Did OK, Kid – Analysis: An Icon with a Temper

It stands as the most iconic introduction in film history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, navigates a row of prison cells finally encountering Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. The man is present, with features like a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless until the moment he propels himself toward the window, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless true-crime documentaries have since shown that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He was not a newcomer at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller in 1989: a star wasn't born, but a legend was cemented. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader as recalled by his daughter, and also from his rigorously precise Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a difficult topic for Anthony, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who was angered by his absences and drinking.

The title originates from an historical picture of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the kid who maybe thought he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a baker and man's man, a straightforward talker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented the necessity of going humbly to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. However, one day in an English lesson he had to recite the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school a no-hoper, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time scholarships existed to attend Rada – a way up for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but lucked into a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which eventually resulted to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, that he favored over theater. He gave up alcohol during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and thus made it into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of the book he appears more reserved, more calculated. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He remembers going out for lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Is that so?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains you must to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Quite so. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply