Anthony Hopkins' Memoir: We Did OK, Kid – Insights: A Legend Known for His Fiery Nature

Widely regarded as the most iconic introduction in cinematic history – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, must walk the line of detention units finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, with features like a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile in his form-fitting prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move before suddenly he lunges at the barrier, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of real-crime films have since shown that genuine criminals are often very boring, with nothing resembling the actor's captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar emerged. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and also from his rigorously precise Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. There was also a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a sore point for Anthony, who recounts how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who disliked him being away and his alcohol use.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he would never do OK. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a plain speaker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and avoided showing his emotions, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the necessity of going humbly to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure young Anthony into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. Then, during during an English class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He convincingly states that poems, alone, started his career. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater within 10 years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days there were grants for drama school – a way up for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but fortunately found an excellent television part playing an alleged war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which eventually resulted to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he liked more compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and so survived through midlife to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of the memoir his character seems more elusive, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He remembers having lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Really?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who believes it is one's responsibility to be on time, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Absolutely. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that came with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply