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Widely regarded as the most memorable entrance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, new to the job, must walk the line of detention units arriving at Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, appearing as an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless before suddenly he throws himself toward the window, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous real-crime films have since revealed that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly a newcomer upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was cemented. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, and also from his strictly demanding drama teacher his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a sore point for Anthony, who also describes how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to his first wife, who disliked his time away and his alcohol use.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a baker and a traditional male, a plain speaker who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and refused to showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented how they were forced cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations like 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 during the car ride. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. He was a poor student in his new institution. Then, during in an English lesson he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other boys. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time there were grants to go to Rada – a way up for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech 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 quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but lucked into a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he preferred over theater. He stopped drinking in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and thus made it into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of the book he appears more reserved, more studied. Certain stories aren't entirely successful. He recalls having lunch by his co-star in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who sought to advise him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Not really. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who believes you must to get there on time, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Quite so. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply