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Widely regarded as the most memorable entrance in movie lore – while he stands without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, navigates a corridor of cells until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. He is positioned, with features like a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, chillingly static in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless right up until he lunges toward the window, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly an unknown upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar emerged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, as well as his icily exacting Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a sore point for Hopkins, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by him being away and drinking.

The title originates 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, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a direct communicator who detested the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and avoided expressing his feelings, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented how they were forced humbly to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and could get the young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, temporarily. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. However, one day in a literature class he had to recite John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and the other students. He reasonably claims that poetry, on its own, started his career. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time scholarships existed to go to Rada – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and burst into tears.

Regarding the fiery, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but fortunately found a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which paved the way to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, which he preferred to the stage. He gave up alcohol in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of the memoir his character seems more elusive, more studied. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He remembers having lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who believes you must to get there on time, know all the crew's names and proceed with the work. Quite so. However, he also describes confronting an obnoxious director 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! Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. A Shakespearean like him must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply