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Widely regarded as the most iconic entrance in movie lore – while he stands utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, proceeds down the line of detention units arriving at the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, with features like a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move before suddenly he lunges against the glass, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that real-life murderers are often very boring, with nothing resembling the actor's commanding screen presence.

He wasn't exactly an unknown at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: he was already established, instead, a superstar was forged. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own strictly demanding drama teacher his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a difficult topic for the actor, who further explains how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and drinking.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a bread-maker and man's man, a straightforward talker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and avoided expressing his feelings, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked the necessity of going humbly to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. Then, during in a literature class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other boys. He convincingly states that poems, alone, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, although in those days scholarships existed for drama school – a path to success for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe by his son's international fame: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, strong-willed son, he departed the theatrical troupe out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but fortunately found a memorable TV character playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he preferred over theater. He stopped drinking back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live into his later years to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He remembers having lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Truly?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it is one's responsibility to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Absolutely. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that came with it. A Shakespearean like him must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A straightforward and sincere nature – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply