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

It stands as the most memorable appearance in cinematic history – and he remains utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, must walk the line of detention units until she reaches Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, with features like an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless before suddenly he propels himself at the barrier, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since revealed that actual serial killers are often very boring, lacking anything like Hopkins' captivating film persona.

He was not unrecognized at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller in 1989: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar was cemented. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his icily exacting drama teacher his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a sore point for Hopkins, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to his first wife, who was angered by him being away and drinking.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in this story: a baker and a traditional male, a plain speaker who detested the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and avoided showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked the necessity of going humbly to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and could get young Anthony into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. Then, during in an English lesson he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and the other boys. He reasonably claims that verse, by itself, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated without much hope, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time there were grants to attend Rada – a way up for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but fortunately found a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he liked more to the stage. And he quit booze in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of the memoir he appears more reserved, more calculated. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He recalls being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver 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 Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who believes you must to get there on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Quite so. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. An actor of his caliber is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with a detailed supplement composed simply