Anthony Hopkins' Memoir: We Did OK, Kid – Insights: An Icon with a Temper
It stands as the most memorable introduction in film history – while he stands completely still.
A young FBI agent, new to the job, navigates a corridor of cells until she reaches the notorious doctor's transparent prison. He is positioned, his face resembling a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile in his form-fitting prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen until the moment he propels himself toward the window, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. A multitude of documentaries on serial killers have since shown that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.
He was not a newcomer at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but a legend emerged. His portrayal of Lecter drew influence, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, and also from his strictly demanding Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a sore point for the actor, who also describes 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 in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who disliked his time away and drinking.
Hopkins in 1941, aged three, on Aberavon beach.
The title originates from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a baker and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who detested the religious hypocrites of the chapel and avoided expressing his feelings, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who was angered by the necessity of going begging to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”
The humility worked, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. Then, during in an English lesson he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, launched him. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Notably, he graduated without much hope, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing with the great Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then there were grants to attend Rada – a path to success for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and began crying.
Regarding the fiery, strong-willed son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but fortunately found a great TV role as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, which he liked more compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.
During the second part of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He remembers going out for lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who wanted to tell him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Truly?
He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it is one's responsibility to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Quite so. However, he also describes confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”
Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply
