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Many consider it the greatest entrance in film history – and he remains without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, navigates a corridor of cells finally encountering Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. The man is present, with features like a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile in his form-fitting prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen until the moment he throws himself at the barrier, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of real-crime films have since shown that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling the actor's commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar emerged. The character of Hannibal drew influence, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and also from his rigorously precise drama teacher Christopher Fettes. There was also a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a sore point for Hopkins, who recounts how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s with Petronella Barker, who disliked him being away and his drinking habits.

The book's name comes from an historical picture of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a baker and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and didn't believe in showing his emotions, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked how they were forced humbly to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. But one day in an English lesson he was required to perform John Masefield's poem The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and the other boys. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated with low prospects, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage with the great Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, although in those days there were grants for drama school – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but lucked into an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, that he favored to the stage. He stopped drinking back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it into his later years to execute great performances, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He remembers being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his portrayal of Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. He tends to concur with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Really?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains it is one's responsibility to get there on time, know all the crew's names and do the job. Indeed. However, he also describes facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him must know Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply