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Many consider it the most iconic appearance in movie lore – while he stands utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, a rookie, navigates the line of detention units finally encountering the notorious doctor's transparent prison. He is positioned, with features like a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move before suddenly he propels himself toward the window, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless real-crime films have since revealed that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

He was not an unknown upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar emerged. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and also from his icily exacting Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a painful subject for the actor, who recounts how his Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who resented his absences and drinking.

The book's name comes from an historical picture of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who detested the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and didn't believe in displaying emotion, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who was angered by the necessity of going begging to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. But one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated with low prospects, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater within 10 years. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then scholarships existed to attend Rada – a path to success for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, which he preferred to the stage. And he quit booze back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into his later years to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Academy Award.

During the second part of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He mentions going out for lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven by jealousy. Truly?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains you must to get there on time, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Absolutely. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply