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

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

Clarice Starling, just starting out, navigates the line of detention units finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, appearing as a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He remains motionless before suddenly he lunges toward the window, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like the actor's captivating film persona.

He was not a newcomer upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film back in 1989: he was already established, instead, a superstar emerged. The character of Hannibal was based, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own rigorously precise Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. There was also a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a sore point for Anthony, who also describes how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his failed first union back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a bread-maker and man's man, a direct communicator who detested the religious hypocrites at the church and refused to expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented how they were forced begging to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. But one day in a literature class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, launched him. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then there were grants for drama school – an opportunity for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but lucked into an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, that he favored compared to stage acting. He gave up alcohol during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it through midlife to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of the memoir his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. Certain stories aren't entirely successful. He mentions being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Absolutely. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. You ever do that again in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply