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Many consider it the most memorable introduction in movie lore – yet the actor stays completely still.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, proceeds down a corridor of cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, with features like a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move until the moment he lunges against the glass, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of real-crime films have since revealed that actual serial killers are often very boring, with nothing resembling Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar emerged. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader as recalled by his daughter, and also from his rigorously precise drama teacher his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a painful subject for the actor, who further explains how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 to his first wife, who disliked him being away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a baker and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and refused to displaying emotion, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked the necessity of going humbly to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. But one day during an English class he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other boys. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, started his career. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, went into acting, and shocking his family, was on stage with Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time scholarships existed to attend Rada – a way up for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, strong-willed son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but fortunately found a great TV role as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, that he favored to the stage. He gave up alcohol during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into middle age to execute great performances, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He recalls having lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it is one's responsibility to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Absolutely. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. Should you ever act that way near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. An actor of his caliber is aware of Cornwall's speech regarding Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a detailed supplement composed simply