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Many consider it the most iconic entrance in film history – and he remains completely still.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, proceeds down a row of prison cells until she reaches the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. There he stands, his face resembling a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen right up until he propels himself at the barrier, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, far from the actor's captivating film persona.

He was not a newcomer at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar emerged. His portrayal of Lecter drew influence, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own strictly demanding drama teacher his instructor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a sore point for Anthony, who further explains how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage during the 60s with Petronella Barker, who resented his time away and his alcohol use.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a baker and man's man, a straightforward talker who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and avoided showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked the way they had to go humbly to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. He was a poor student at his new school. However, one day in a literature class he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his talent emerged; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days there were grants to go to Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but lucked into a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, that he favored compared to stage acting. He gave up alcohol in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and so survived into middle age to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. A few tales fall a bit flat. He recalls being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Really?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it's your duty to get there on time, know all the crew's names and proceed with the work. Absolutely. However, he also describes facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply