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Many consider it the greatest entrance in movie lore – while he stands completely still.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, proceeds down a corridor of cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. The man is present, with features like a living skull filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move until the moment he propels himself toward the window, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous real-crime films have since revealed that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, far from the actor's commanding screen presence.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but a legend was forged. His portrayal of Lecter drew influence, the actor happily remembers in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and on his own rigorously precise Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a painful subject for Hopkins, who recounts how his King Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret about Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union during the 60s to his first wife, who resented him being away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the kid who maybe thought he would never do OK. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a baker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented how they were forced begging to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and could get young Anthony into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, for a while. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. However, one day in a literature class he was required to perform John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and the other boys. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, launched him. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time scholarships existed for drama school – a path to success for working-class actors. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but fortunately found a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, which he preferred to the stage. He gave up alcohol back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and thus made it through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He remembers being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his portrayal of Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who thinks it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Indeed. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that came with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply