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Widely regarded as the greatest appearance in movie lore – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, proceeds down a row of prison cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. He is positioned, his face resembling an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen right up until he throws himself against the glass, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since shown that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling the actor's commanding screen presence.

He was not an unknown at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar emerged. The character of Hannibal drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own icily exacting Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a difficult topic for Anthony, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by deep-seated remorse regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage in 1966 to his first wife, who resented his absences and drinking.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who despised the religious hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in showing his emotions, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who deeply disliked how they were forced begging to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. But one day during an English class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and the other students. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, launched him. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Notably, he graduated without much hope, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, although in those days financial aid was available to attend Rada – a path to success for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but lucked into a memorable TV character playing an alleged war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he liked more over theater. He gave up alcohol during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live into his later years to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the latter half of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. A few tales fall a bit flat. He remembers being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it's your duty to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Absolutely. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And develop some respect. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber must know Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A straightforward and sincere nature – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply