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Widely regarded as the most memorable entrance in cinematic history – while he stands utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, navigates a row of prison cells arriving at Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, with features like a living skull filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move before suddenly he propels himself against the glass, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless real-crime films have since revealed that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, far from the actor's commanding screen presence.

He was not unrecognized at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar was forged. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his icily exacting Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a painful subject for Hopkins, who also describes how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who disliked his absences and drinking.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he would never do OK. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a plain speaker who detested the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who furiously resented the way they had to go humbly to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. But one day in a literature class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing with the great Olivier at the Old Vic within 10 years. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time financial aid was available to go to Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but lucked into an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, that he favored over theater. He stopped drinking in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live into his later years to execute great performances, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Academy Award.

During the second part of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more studied. Certain stories aren't entirely successful. He mentions having lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven by jealousy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it's your duty to be on time, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Indeed. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And develop some respect. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply