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Widely regarded as the most memorable appearance in film history – and he remains utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, must walk a corridor of cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, his face resembling a living skull radiating satanic malice, chillingly static in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless until the moment he propels himself against the glass, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling Hopkins' captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was cemented. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, and also from his icily exacting Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a sore point for Hopkins, who further explains how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union during the 60s to his first wife, who was angered by his time away and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a baker and man's man, a straightforward talker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and avoided displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who was angered by how they were forced cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, for a time. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. However, one day in a literature class he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and the other students. He convincingly states that poems, alone, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time financial aid was available for drama school – a path to success for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but lucked into a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, that he favored over theater. And he quit booze back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, such as 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.

During the second part of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He mentions having lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it is one's responsibility to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Quite so. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply