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Many consider it the most iconic entrance in film history – while he stands without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, must walk a corridor of cells until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, with features like a living skull filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He stands frozen right up until he lunges at the barrier, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since shown that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not a newcomer when he landed that Oscar-winning role in the 1991 thriller during the late 80s: a star wasn't born, but a legend was cemented. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own strictly demanding drama teacher Christopher Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a difficult topic for Anthony, who also describes how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret about Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented his absences and drinking.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who loathed the religious hypocrites of the chapel and refused to displaying emotion, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented the necessity of going cap-in-hand to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. But one day in a literature class he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and the other boys. He reasonably claims that verse, by itself, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage with the great Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then financial aid was available to attend Rada – a way up for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but fortunately found an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, which he preferred over theater. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and so survived through midlife to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He mentions being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Really?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who believes it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Absolutely. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be someone who gave up drink yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply