Exploring Anthony Hopkins' Autobiography We Did OK, Kid – Insights: An Icon with a Temper

Widely regarded as the greatest introduction in film history – and he remains utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, must walk a row of prison cells until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, appearing as an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move right up until he lunges at the barrier, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since shown that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar emerged. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, and on his own icily exacting Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a sore point for Anthony, who also describes how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who was angered by him being away and drinking.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who loathed the religious hypocrites in their community and refused to expressing his feelings, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented how they were forced cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims during the car ride. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. However, one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his talent emerged; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He convincingly states that verse, by itself, started his career. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage with the great Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days scholarships existed for drama school – an opportunity for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but lucked into an excellent television part playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, that he favored to the stage. He stopped drinking in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and so survived into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of the memoir he appears more reserved, more deliberate. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He remembers being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who wanted to tell him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes it's your duty to be on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Indeed. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And learn some manners. Should you ever act that way near me, I'll alter your appearance!” He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply