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It stands as the most iconic appearance in film history – while he stands without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, new to the job, must walk a corridor of cells finally encountering Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. There he stands, with features like an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He stands frozen right up until he throws himself toward the window, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly an unknown at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar was cemented. His portrayal of Lecter drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his strictly demanding acting coach his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a painful subject for Hopkins, who also describes how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who resented his time away and his drinking habits.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a plain speaker who despised the religious hypocrites at the church and avoided expressing his feelings, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented how they were forced humbly to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, for a time. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. However, one day during an English class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He convincingly states that poems, alone, started his career. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated without much hope, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time there were grants for drama school – an opportunity for actors from humble backgrounds. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but fortunately found a great TV role as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to roles such as in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he preferred to the stage. And he quit booze in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and managed to live through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of the book he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He remembers going out for lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Really?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and proceed with the work. Absolutely. But he also recounts facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that came 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 is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply