Anthony Hopkins' Memoir: We Did OK, Kid – Analysis: A Legend with a Temper

Many consider it the most memorable introduction in film history – and he remains completely still.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, proceeds down the line of detention units arriving at Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, with features like a living skull exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile in his form-fitting prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move until the moment he lunges at the barrier, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous real-crime films have since shown that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller in 1989: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar emerged. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, the actor happily remembers in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own icily exacting drama teacher his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a paternal-filial aspect to these scenes; a difficult topic for the actor, who further explains how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret about Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage back in 1966 to his first wife, who resented his time away and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived 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 wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a direct communicator who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and refused to showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who was angered by the way they had to go cap-in-hand to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. However, one day during an English class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He convincingly states that verse, by itself, started his career. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days financial aid was available to attend Rada – a way up for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but stumbled upon a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, which he preferred over theater. And he quit booze back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into his later years to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He recalls having lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who wanted to tell him his portrayal of Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Really?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who maintains you must to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Absolutely. However, he also describes confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” He appears to be a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A straightforward and sincere nature – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply