Anthony Hopkins' Memoir: We Did OK, Kid – Insights: An Icon Known for His Fiery Nature

Many consider it the most memorable entrance in movie lore – yet the actor stays completely still.

The FBI trainee, a rookie, must walk a corridor of cells arriving at Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, appearing as an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless before suddenly he propels himself against the glass, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: a star wasn't born, but a legend was forged. The character of Hannibal drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and on his own icily exacting acting coach his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a paternal-filial aspect to these scenes; a painful subject for Anthony, who recounts how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt about Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who disliked his absences and his drinking habits.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and avoided displaying emotion, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who was angered by the way they had to go humbly to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. Then, during in an English lesson he had to recite the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated without much hope, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was acting with the great Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days there were grants to go to Rada – a way up 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 the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively 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 disapproval – 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 David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, that he favored compared to stage acting. He gave up alcohol during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He recalls having lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who believes it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Indeed. However, he also describes facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” He appears to be a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply