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

Many consider it the greatest introduction in film history – and he remains without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, proceeds down the line of detention units finally encountering Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, his face resembling a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move before suddenly he propels himself at the barrier, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's commanding screen presence.

He wasn't exactly an unknown when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller in 1989: he was already established, instead, a superstar emerged. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his rigorously precise drama teacher his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a sore point for Hopkins, who also describes how his Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who was angered by his absences and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a direct communicator who loathed the religious hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who was angered by the way they had to go cap-in-hand to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. But one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He convincingly states that poems, alone, started his career. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Notably, he graduated with low prospects, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing with the great Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days financial aid was available to attend Rada – an opportunity for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but lucked into an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in cinema, that he favored over theater. He stopped drinking in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He mentions being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Truly?

He consistently acts as the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes it is one's responsibility 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'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that came with it. A Shakespearean like him must know Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply