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Many consider it the most iconic entrance in film history – and he remains utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, must walk the line of detention units finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, appearing as a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless before suddenly he throws himself against the glass, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that actual serial killers are often very boring, lacking anything like Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

He was not unrecognized when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: he was already established, but rather a megastar was cemented. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, as well as his icily exacting Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a difficult topic for Hopkins, who recounts how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented his time away and his drinking habits.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a baker and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and didn't believe in displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who was angered by the necessity of going humbly to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. However, one day in a literature class he had to recite the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He reasonably claims that verse, by itself, propelled him forward. 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 performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then financial aid was available to go to Rada – a path to success for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but lucked into a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, which he liked more compared to stage acting. He gave up alcohol in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and so survived into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

During the second part of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He remembers being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Is that so?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes it is one's responsibility to get there on time, know all the crew's names and proceed with the work. Indeed. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply