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

Clarice Starling, new to the job, navigates a corridor of cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, his face resembling a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He remains motionless right up until he lunges toward the window, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous real-crime films have since demonstrated that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling Hopkins' captivating film persona.

He was not an unknown at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar emerged. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own strictly demanding acting coach his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a difficult topic for Hopkins, who also describes how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who was angered by him being away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and avoided showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked the way they had to go begging to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and could get the young Anthony into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. Then, during in a literature class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, launched him. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days there were grants to go to Rada – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but fortunately found an excellent television part playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, which he preferred to the stage. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He recalls going out for lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it is one's responsibility to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Indeed. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply