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It stands as the most memorable entrance in film history – and he remains completely still.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, proceeds down the line of detention units finally encountering Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, with features like a living skull radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move until the moment he throws himself at the barrier, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless real-crime films have since revealed that real-life murderers are often very boring, lacking anything like Hopkins' captivating film persona.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller during the late 80s: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar emerged. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and also from his rigorously precise drama teacher Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a difficult topic for Hopkins, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by deep-seated remorse regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to his first wife, who resented his absences and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child hailing from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and avoided expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked how they were forced begging to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and could get young Anthony into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he exclaims during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. He was a poor student at his new school. Then, during in an English lesson he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other boys. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated without much hope, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with the great Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time there were grants to attend Rada – a path to success for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but fortunately found a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he preferred to the stage. And he quit booze back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of the memoir he appears more reserved, more calculated. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He recalls being taken out to lunch by his co-star in the film Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who believes it is one's responsibility to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Quite so. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply