Exploring Anthony Hopkins' Autobiography We Did OK, Kid – Review: A Legend Known for His Fiery Nature

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

Clarice Starling, just starting out, navigates the line of detention units until she reaches Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. The man is present, with features like a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, chillingly static in his form-fitting prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen until the moment he propels himself toward the window, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling Hopkins' captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown 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, instead, a superstar emerged. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and on his own rigorously precise drama teacher his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a difficult topic for Hopkins, who further explains how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt about Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to his first wife, who was angered by his time away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a baker and a tough individual, a direct communicator who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and refused to showing his emotions, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who was angered by the way they had to go humbly to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, for a while. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. Then, during in an English lesson he had to recite John Masefield's poem titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage with the great Olivier at the Old Vic within 10 years. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days financial aid was available for drama school – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and began crying.

Regarding the fiery, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but fortunately found a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, which he preferred to the stage. He stopped drinking in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and so survived through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more calculated. A few tales fall a bit flat. He remembers going out for lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Truly?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who thinks it's your duty to get there on time, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Absolutely. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologize to that girl! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply