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

It stands as the most iconic entrance in film history – and he remains completely still.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, navigates the line of detention units finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, with features like a living skull exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen before suddenly he lunges at the barrier, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of documentaries on serial killers have since shown that genuine criminals are often very boring, far from Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not an unknown at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: he was already established, instead, a superstar emerged. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and on his own icily exacting drama teacher his instructor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a painful subject for Anthony, who also describes how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to his first wife, who disliked his time away and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a pastry chef and man's man, a plain speaker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and didn't believe in showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented the way they had to go humbly to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. He was a poor student in his new institution. Then, during in an English lesson he had to recite the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his talent emerged; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, went into acting, and shocking his family, was performing with the great Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then scholarships existed for drama school – a path to success for working-class actors. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and burst into tears.

Regarding the fiery, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but lucked into a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which eventually resulted to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, which he preferred over theater. He stopped drinking in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more studied. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He remembers being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting due to resentment. Really?

He consistently acts as the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who thinks it's your duty to be on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Indeed. However, he also describes facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that came with it. An actor of his caliber is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply