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

Widely regarded as the most memorable introduction in film history – and he remains without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, must walk a row of prison cells arriving at Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, with features like a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, chillingly static clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move until the moment he throws himself against the glass, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless true-crime documentaries have since shown that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not unrecognized upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar was forged. The character of Hannibal drew influence, the actor happily remembers in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his strictly demanding drama teacher his mentor Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a sore point for Hopkins, who recounts how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who disliked his time away and his drinking habits.

The title originates from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a direct communicator who detested the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked the way they had to go cap-in-hand to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. He was a poor student in his new institution. But one day in an English lesson 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 reasonably claims that verse, by itself, propelled him forward. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Surprisingly, he exited school a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then there were grants for drama school – an opportunity for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but lucked into a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he liked more over theater. And he quit booze during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of the book he appears more reserved, more calculated. A few tales fall a bit flat. He mentions having lunch with his fellow actor in the film Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven by jealousy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who thinks it is one's responsibility to be on time, remember every crew member's name and proceed with the work. Quite so. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker 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! Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply