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It stands as the most memorable entrance in film history – yet the actor stays completely still.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, proceeds down the line of detention units finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, his face resembling a living skull filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen before suddenly he throws himself at the barrier, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since revealed that real-life murderers are often very boring, lacking anything like Hopkins' captivating film persona.

He was not an unknown when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar was forged. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own rigorously precise Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a sore point for the actor, who also describes how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in this story: a baker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who despised the religious hypocrites of the chapel and refused to showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked the necessity of going cap-in-hand to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and was able to secure young Anthony into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. However, one day in a literature class he was required to perform John Masefield's poem titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and the other students. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was acting with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic within 10 years. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time there were grants to go to Rada – a way up for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and burst into tears.

Regarding the fiery, stubborn individual, he departed the theatrical troupe out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, which he preferred compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the latter half of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. A few tales fall a bit flat. He mentions being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Sorvino, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and do the job. Absolutely. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And learn some manners. Should you ever act that way in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply