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Widely regarded as the most memorable entrance in film history – and he remains utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, proceeds down a row of prison cells finally encountering Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. There he stands, appearing as an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move until the moment he propels himself toward the window, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of real-crime films have since revealed that actual serial killers are often very boring, with nothing resembling the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller during the late 80s: he was already established, instead, a superstar emerged. The character of Hannibal was based, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own rigorously precise drama teacher his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a sore point for Anthony, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a baker and man's man, a direct communicator who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and avoided expressing his feelings, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who was angered by the way they had to go cap-in-hand to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. But one day in a literature class he was required to perform 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 poetry, on its own, started his career. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then scholarships existed for drama school – an opportunity for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but fortunately found a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which paved the way to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, that he favored over theater. He stopped drinking back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film 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 his autobiography he appears more reserved, more calculated. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He recalls going out for lunch by his co-star in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Hardly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains you must to get there on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Indeed. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of 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!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply