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Widely regarded as the most memorable entrance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, navigates a corridor of cells finally encountering Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, appearing as a living skull radiating satanic malice, chillingly static clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless right up until he lunges against the glass, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. A multitude of real-crime films have since revealed that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling Hopkins' captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar emerged. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and also from his rigorously precise acting coach his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a difficult topic for Anthony, who further explains how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who disliked him being away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a pastry chef and man's man, a straightforward talker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and refused to displaying emotion, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who was angered by how they were forced humbly to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. Then, during in an English lesson he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and the other students. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, started his career. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then financial aid was available to attend Rada – an opportunity for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but stumbled upon a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which paved the way to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, which he liked more to the stage. He gave up alcohol in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He remembers going out for lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes it is one's responsibility to be on time, know all the crew's names and do the job. Absolutely. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way near me, I'll alter your appearance!” He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply