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It stands as the most memorable introduction in film history – while he stands without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, must walk the line of detention units finally encountering Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. The man is present, with features like a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He stands frozen before suddenly he throws himself toward the window, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly an unknown when he landed that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: a star wasn't born, but a legend emerged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and on his own rigorously precise drama teacher his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a painful subject for Anthony, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his failed first union during the 60s to his first wife, who disliked his time away and his drinking habits.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who detested the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and avoided displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who furiously resented the way they had to go cap-in-hand to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. But one day during an English class he had to recite John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, started his career. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing with the great Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days scholarships existed for drama school – a way up for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but fortunately found an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he preferred to the stage. And he quit booze back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He mentions being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Truly?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who thinks it is one's responsibility to get there on time, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Indeed. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply