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It stands as the greatest entrance in movie lore – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, navigates a row of prison cells arriving at Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. The man is present, his face resembling a living skull exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move right up until he propels himself at the barrier, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that actual serial killers are often very boring, lacking anything like the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: he was already established, but a legend emerged. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and also from his icily exacting Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a painful subject for Hopkins, who further explains how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who resented his time away and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child hailing from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a direct communicator who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and refused to expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked how they were forced humbly to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. He was a poor student in his new institution. However, one day in an English lesson he was required to perform the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he stunned the teacher and the other boys. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, started his career. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then there were grants for drama school – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but lucked into a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, that he favored to the stage. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and so survived into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the latter half of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more calculated. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He remembers having lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains it is one's responsibility to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Absolutely. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. You ever do that again in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! He appears to be a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply