We Did OK, Kid: A Memoir by Anthony Hopkins – Review: An Icon with a Temper

Widely regarded as the most memorable introduction in film history – yet the actor stays completely still.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, navigates the line of detention units arriving at the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, appearing as a living skull filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless until the moment he throws himself toward the window, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar emerged. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, as well as his icily exacting Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. Additionally, there existed a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a difficult topic for Anthony, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his absences and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived 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 felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in this story: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a direct communicator who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked the necessity of going cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. He was a poor student in his new institution. However, one day in a literature class he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other boys. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, started his career. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days there were grants for drama school – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but fortunately found an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, that he favored compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and managed to live into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of the memoir he appears more reserved, more studied. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He mentions being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains it's your duty to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Absolutely. However, he also describes facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be someone who gave up drink but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply