Anthony Hopkins' Memoir: We Did OK, Kid – Analysis: An Icon with a Temper
It stands as the most memorable appearance in movie lore – yet the actor stays completely still.
The FBI trainee, a rookie, proceeds down a corridor of cells arriving at the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. He is positioned, his face resembling an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move before suddenly he throws himself against the glass, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since shown that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like the actor's commanding screen presence.
Hopkins was hardly a newcomer upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film during the late 80s: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar emerged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own strictly demanding drama teacher his instructor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a painful subject for the actor, who further explains how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his failed first union during the 60s to his first wife, who disliked his absences and his drinking habits.
A young Hopkins at three years old on Aberavon beach.
The memoir's title is derived from a vintage war-era photograph of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy hailing from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who despised the religious hypocrites of the chapel and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented the necessity of going begging to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and could get young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”
The pleading was effective, for a time. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. Then, during in a literature class he had to recite the verse by John Masefield The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He reasonably claims that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater within 10 years. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then financial aid was available for drama school – an opportunity for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and began crying.
As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but lucked into an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, which he liked more to the stage. He gave up alcohol in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his second Oscar.
During the second part of the memoir he appears more reserved, more studied. A few tales fall a bit flat. He recalls having lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Is that so?
He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who maintains you must to get there on time, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Indeed. But he also recounts facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”
Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply
