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

It stands as the greatest appearance in film history – and he remains without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, proceeds down a corridor of cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, with features like a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, chillingly static wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen right up until he propels himself against the glass, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since revealed that real-life murderers are often very boring, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He was not a newcomer when he landed that Oscar-winning role in the 1991 thriller in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar was cemented. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, as well as his icily exacting Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a painful subject for the actor, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who disliked him being away and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a direct communicator who detested the religious hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who furiously resented the way they had to go humbly to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and was able to secure young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, for a time. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. But one day in an English lesson he had to recite the poem by Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He convincingly states that verse, by itself, propelled him forward. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Surprisingly, he exited school a no-hoper, pursued acting, and shocking his family, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then scholarships existed to attend Rada – a way up for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but lucked into a memorable TV character playing an alleged war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to roles such as in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he liked more over theater. And he quit booze in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and so survived through midlife to execute great performances, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his second Academy Award.

During the second part of the memoir he appears more reserved, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He mentions having lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, 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? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Really?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who thinks it is one's responsibility to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Absolutely. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him must know Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply