Anthony Hopkins' Memoir: We Did OK, Kid – Review: A Legend Known for His Fiery Nature

Many consider it the greatest introduction in cinematic history – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, navigates the line of detention units finally encountering the notorious doctor's transparent prison. The man is present, with features like an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen until the moment he throws himself against the glass, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless real-crime films have since shown that genuine criminals are often very boring, lacking anything like Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was cemented. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, as well as his strictly demanding drama teacher his mentor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a difficult topic for Hopkins, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by deep-seated remorse regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who disliked him being away and drinking.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a baker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who detested the religious hypocrites in their community and avoided showing his emotions, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented the necessity of going cap-in-hand to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. But one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Notably, he graduated without much hope, went into acting, and shocking his family, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days scholarships existed to go to Rada – a way up for working-class actors. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and began crying.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to roles such as in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, that he favored over theater. And he quit booze back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of the memoir he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He remembers going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Really?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes you must to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Quite so. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that came with it. An actor of his caliber is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a detailed supplement composed simply