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Many consider it the greatest appearance in movie lore – while he stands utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, proceeds down a row of prison cells arriving at Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. He is positioned, appearing as a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless until the moment he throws himself toward the window, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, far from the actor's captivating film persona.

He was not an unknown upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film back in 1989: a star wasn't born, but a legend emerged. His Dr. Lecter was based, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his icily exacting drama teacher his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a painful subject for Hopkins, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a pastry chef and man's man, a straightforward talker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and didn't believe in showing his emotions, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who deeply disliked the necessity of going cap-in-hand to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a while. He was a poor student at his new school. But one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other boys. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater within 10 years. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then there were grants to attend Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and burst into tears.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, which he preferred to the stage. And he quit booze in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and so survived into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more studied. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He remembers being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Really?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it is one's responsibility to be on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Absolutely. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply