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

Many consider it the most memorable appearance in film history – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, a rookie, proceeds down the line of detention units until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, with features like a living skull filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move before suddenly he lunges at the barrier, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling the actor's commanding screen presence.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in the 1991 thriller during the late 80s: he was already established, but rather a megastar emerged. His portrayal of Lecter was based, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, as well as his icily exacting acting coach Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a sore point for Hopkins, who further explains how his Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his failed first union during the 60s to his first wife, who disliked his time away and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a bread-maker and man's man, a straightforward talker who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who deeply disliked the necessity of going humbly to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. However, one day in a literature class he had to recite John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, started his career. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then scholarships existed to go to Rada – a way up for working-class actors. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, stubborn individual, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but lucked into an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, which he liked more over theater. And he quit booze back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and thus made it into his later years to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Certain stories aren't entirely successful. He mentions being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. He tends to concur with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who believes it's your duty to be on time, know all the crew's names and do the job. Absolutely. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And learn some manners. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply