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Many consider it the most memorable entrance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, proceeds down a row of prison cells finally encountering Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. The man is present, appearing as an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move before suddenly he throws himself toward the window, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless real-crime films have since demonstrated that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like Hopkins' captivating film persona.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar was forged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and also from his strictly demanding Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. There was also a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a sore point for Hopkins, who recounts how his Lear was indirectly affected by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented his absences and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a baker and a traditional male, a plain speaker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and refused to showing his emotions, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who deeply disliked how they were forced cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. He was a poor student at his new school. Then, during in an English lesson he had to recite John Masefield's poem The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He reasonably claims that poetry, on its own, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic within 10 years. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then there were grants to attend Rada – a way up for working-class actors. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and began crying.

Regarding the fiery, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, that he favored to the stage. He stopped drinking back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of the memoir he appears more reserved, more calculated. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He recalls having lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Is that so?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains it's your duty to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Absolutely. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange 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 Cornwall's speech regarding Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply