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Widely regarded as the most iconic entrance in movie lore – yet the actor stays completely still.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, proceeds down a corridor of cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, his face resembling a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move before suddenly he propels himself at the barrier, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless real-crime films have since shown that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like the actor's captivating film persona.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar was forged. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own rigorously precise acting coach his mentor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a sore point for Hopkins, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt about Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who disliked his time away and drinking.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a pastry chef and man's man, a direct communicator who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and refused to displaying emotion, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented the necessity of going cap-in-hand to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. But one day during an English class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and the other students. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then there were grants to go to Rada – a way up for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and began crying.

Regarding the fiery, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but lucked into a great TV role as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, that he favored to the stage. And he quit booze in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He recalls going out for lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes it's your duty to get there on time, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Quite so. But he also recounts facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And learn some manners. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply