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

It stands as the greatest entrance in movie lore – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, navigates a corridor of cells finally encountering the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. There he stands, with features like a living skull filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move right up until he throws himself at the barrier, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless true-crime documentaries have since revealed that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized when he landed that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: he was already established, but rather a megastar was forged. His Dr. Lecter was based, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his strictly demanding drama teacher his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a difficult topic for Anthony, who also describes how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union during the 60s with Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time away and his drinking habits.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the way they had to go begging to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he exclaims while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. He was a poor student in his new institution. Then, during in a literature class he was required to perform John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, started his career. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time there were grants to attend Rada – an opportunity for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but stumbled upon a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, which he liked more to the stage. He gave up alcohol back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and so survived through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of the memoir his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He recalls having lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Really?

He consistently acts as the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes it's your duty to get there on time, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Quite so. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who caused a young extra to weep: “Say sorry to her! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a detailed supplement composed simply