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Many consider it the most memorable appearance in cinematic history – and he remains completely still.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, proceeds down a row of prison cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, appearing as a living skull exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen until the moment he propels himself against the glass, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since shown that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling Hopkins' captivating film persona.

He was not an unknown upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar was cemented. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his icily exacting drama teacher his instructor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a sore point for Hopkins, who further explains how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time away and drinking.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the kid who maybe thought he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a baker and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who detested the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and avoided expressing his feelings, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who furiously resented the necessity of going cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, for a while. He was a poor student at his new school. However, one day in a literature class he had to recite the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and the other students. He convincingly states that poems, alone, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated without much hope, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time there were grants to attend Rada – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which eventually resulted to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he liked more compared to stage acting. And he quit booze in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and so survived into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He mentions being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Really?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it's your duty to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Absolutely. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him must know 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 a lengthy appendix composed simply