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

Many consider it the most memorable entrance in film history – while he stands without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, new to the job, must walk a corridor of cells finally encountering the notorious doctor's transparent prison. He is positioned, his face resembling an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless until the moment he throws himself toward the window, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that actual serial killers are often very boring, lacking anything like the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar was cemented. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, as well as his rigorously precise Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a sore point for Hopkins, who recounts how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to his first wife, who resented his absences and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture 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, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a pastry chef and man's man, a straightforward talker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and refused to showing his emotions, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked the way they had to go begging to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, for a while. He was a poor student at his new school. However, one day in a literature class he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem 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, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, although in those days scholarships existed for drama school – an opportunity for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but fortunately found a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, which he preferred over theater. And he quit booze in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and thus made it into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of the book he appears more reserved, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He mentions being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who believes it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and proceed with the work. Indeed. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. Should you ever act that way in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with a detailed supplement composed simply