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Many consider it the most iconic introduction in film history – and he remains without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, new to the job, must walk the line of detention units until she reaches Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, his face resembling a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move right up until he propels himself against the glass, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since revealed that genuine criminals are often very boring, with nothing resembling the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not unrecognized at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, but a legend emerged. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his rigorously precise drama teacher his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a difficult topic for Hopkins, who further explains how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented 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 boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child hailing from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a pastry chef and man's man, a straightforward talker who detested the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and refused to displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented how they were forced begging to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. But one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He convincingly states that verse, by itself, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, pursued acting, and shocking his family, was on stage with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then scholarships existed to attend Rada – a way up for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, which he preferred compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He remembers going out for lunch by his co-star in the film Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Really?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Quite so. However, he also describes confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And develop some respect. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A straightforward and sincere nature – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply