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It stands as the most memorable introduction in movie lore – while he stands completely still.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, navigates a row of prison cells until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, appearing as an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless right up until he lunges against the glass, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film back in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was cemented. The character of Hannibal drew influence, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his icily exacting acting coach his mentor Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a difficult topic for the actor, who recounts how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union during the 60s with Petronella Barker, who disliked his absences and his alcohol use.

The title originates from an historical picture of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a baker and a tough individual, a plain speaker who detested the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and refused to expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who was angered by the necessity of going begging to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. He was a poor student at his new school. However, one day in an English lesson he was required to perform the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and the other boys. He reasonably claims that verse, by itself, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was on stage with Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, although in those days there were grants for drama school – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but lucked into an excellent television part playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, that he favored over theater. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and thus made it into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He remembers going out for lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes you must to be on time, remember every crew member's name and proceed with the work. Quite so. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry 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 yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply