We Did OK, Kid: A Memoir by Anthony Hopkins – Insights: A Legend with a Temper

Many consider it the most memorable introduction in cinematic history – while he stands utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, a rookie, navigates the line of detention units until she reaches the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. The man is present, appearing as a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still in his form-fitting prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move right up until he throws himself against the glass, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not a newcomer when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film back in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was forged. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own rigorously precise Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a painful subject for Hopkins, who recounts how his King Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who resented his absences and his drinking habits.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a direct communicator who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and didn't believe in showing his emotions, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented the necessity of going begging to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. However, one day in a literature class he had to recite the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, started his career. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated without much hope, pursued acting, and shocking his family, was performing with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then there were grants for drama school – an opportunity for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and burst into tears.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, that he favored over theater. And he quit booze back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live through midlife to execute great performances, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more studied. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He recalls having lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven by jealousy. Truly?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains you must to be on time, 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: “Apologise to her! And develop some respect. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply