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

The FBI trainee, just starting out, proceeds down a corridor of cells until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, with features like a living skull filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move until the moment he propels himself against the glass, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous real-crime films have since shown that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling the actor's commanding screen presence.

He was not a newcomer at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film during the late 80s: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was forged. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, and on his own icily exacting Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a sore point for Hopkins, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage during the 60s with Petronella Barker, who disliked his absences and his drinking habits.

The book's name comes from an historical picture of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a baker and man's man, a straightforward talker who despised the religious hypocrites of the chapel and avoided expressing his feelings, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked the necessity of going begging to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and could get the young Anthony into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. But one day during an English class he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He reasonably claims that verse, by itself, launched him. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. 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 just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days scholarships existed to attend Rada – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but stumbled upon an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, which he liked more over theater. He stopped drinking in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and so survived through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in 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 later sections of the memoir he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He recalls going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Really?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes it's your duty to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Indeed. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. An actor of his caliber must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply