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Many consider it the most memorable entrance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, navigates the line of detention units finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, appearing as a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless before suddenly he throws himself against the glass, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since shown that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like the actor's captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly a newcomer when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller in 1989: he was already established, but a legend emerged. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader as recalled by his daughter, as well as his rigorously precise Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a difficult topic for the actor, who recounts how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by him being away and his alcohol use.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in this story: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who loathed the religious hypocrites of the chapel and refused to displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who deeply disliked the way they had to go cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. But one day in an English lesson he had to recite the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then scholarships existed to attend Rada – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but lucked into a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, which he liked more over theater. And he quit booze during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of the book his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He recalls going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes it is one's responsibility to get there on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Indeed. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. You ever do that again in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! He appears to be someone who gave up drink yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply