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Widely regarded as the greatest entrance in movie lore – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, must walk the line of detention units until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, with features like an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He stands frozen before suddenly he propels himself toward the window, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of real-crime films have since revealed that genuine criminals are often very boring, with nothing resembling the actor's commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film during the late 80s: he was already established, but a legend was forged. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on 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 the actor, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the kid who maybe thought he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who detested the religious hypocrites of the chapel and refused to showing his emotions, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who was angered by the necessity of going humbly to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he exclaims during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a while. He was a poor student in his new institution. However, one day during an English class he had to recite the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and the other students. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school a no-hoper, pursued acting, and shocking his family, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic within 10 years. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time there were grants for drama school – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but lucked into a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, that he favored over theater. He gave up alcohol during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and so survived into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He mentions going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Really?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who thinks it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and do the job. Absolutely. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply