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Many consider it the greatest appearance in film history – while he stands without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, navigates a row of prison cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. There he stands, with features like an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, chillingly static clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless right up until he lunges at the barrier, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous real-crime films have since shown that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, far from Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar was cemented. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on Joseph Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and also from his icily exacting acting coach Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a painful subject for the actor, who further explains how his Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who was angered by him being away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a plain speaker who detested the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and refused to showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked how they were forced begging to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and could get young Anthony into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims during the car ride. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. Then, during during an English class he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated with low prospects, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, although in those days scholarships existed to attend Rada – a way up for working-class actors. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony 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, strong-willed son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, which he preferred over theater. And he quit booze in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and managed to live through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. Certain stories aren't entirely successful. He mentions going out for lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who thinks it's your duty to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and do the job. Indeed. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply