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Widely regarded as the most iconic introduction in movie lore – while he stands without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, navigates the line of detention units finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, his face resembling a living skull exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move before suddenly he throws himself against the glass, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since shown that actual serial killers are often very boring, with nothing resembling Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

He was not a newcomer at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar was forged. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his icily exacting drama teacher his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a difficult topic for Hopkins, who also describes how his Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union during the 60s to his first wife, who resented him being away and drinking.

The title originates from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a baker and man's man, a plain speaker who detested the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and didn't believe in showing his emotions, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked the necessity of going begging to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he shouts during the car ride. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. He was a poor student in his new institution. However, one day during an English class he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, started his career. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Notably, he graduated without much hope, went into acting, and shocking his family, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then financial aid was available to attend Rada – a path to success for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but fortunately found a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, which he liked more to the stage. He stopped drinking in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and so survived through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He mentions being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for him to absorb something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Truly?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes you must to get there on time, remember every crew member's name and proceed with the work. Absolutely. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that came with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a detailed supplement composed simply