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Widely regarded as the most memorable entrance in movie lore – and he remains utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, proceeds down a corridor of cells arriving at Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. He is positioned, appearing as a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen before suddenly he lunges against the glass, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of documentaries on serial killers have since shown that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, far from Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar was forged. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and on his own icily exacting Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a painful subject for Hopkins, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who disliked his time away and his drinking habits.

The book's name comes from an historical picture of Hopkins as a toddler on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he would never do OK. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who loathed the religious hypocrites at the church and refused to showing his emotions, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who was angered by the necessity of going cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts during the car ride. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. He was a poor student at his new school. However, one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, started his career. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated with low prospects, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then financial aid was available to attend Rada – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but lucked into an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, which he preferred compared to stage acting. And he quit booze during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

During the second part of the memoir he appears more reserved, more deliberate. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He recalls being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Truly?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it is one's responsibility to be on time, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Quite so. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologize to that girl! And develop some respect. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply