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

It stands as the most iconic entrance in movie lore – while he stands utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, must walk the line of detention units finally encountering the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. The man is present, with features like a living skull radiating satanic malice, chillingly static wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless right up until he propels himself at the barrier, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous real-crime films have since shown that actual serial killers are often very boring, lacking anything like Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

He wasn't exactly an unknown at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but a legend was cemented. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, as well as his strictly demanding drama teacher Christopher Fettes. There was also a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a sore point for Anthony, who also describes how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret about Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a baker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who loathed the religious hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who furiously resented the necessity of going humbly to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. However, one day in a literature class he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, started his career. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then financial aid was available to attend Rada – a way up for working-class actors. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, that he favored over theater. He stopped drinking in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into middle age to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He recalls having 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 moment for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Really?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes you must to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Indeed. However, he also describes facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply