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It stands as the most iconic appearance in movie lore – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, navigates a corridor of cells until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. He is positioned, his face resembling a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move until the moment he propels himself against the glass, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of real-crime films have since revealed that genuine criminals are often very boring, lacking anything like Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

He wasn't exactly an unknown when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: he was already established, but rather a megastar emerged. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, and on his own rigorously precise acting coach his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a sore point for Anthony, who recounts how his Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time away 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 boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He appeared lost, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a direct communicator who detested the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and avoided expressing his feelings, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who was angered by how they were forced humbly to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. However, one day in a literature class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, although in those days financial aid was available for drama school – a way up for working-class actors. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and burst into tears.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but lucked into a memorable TV character playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, which he liked more over theater. And he quit booze in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it into his later years to execute great performances, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his second Academy Award.

During the second part of the book his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. A few tales fall a bit flat. He mentions going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who believes it's your duty to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Quite so. However, he also describes facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And learn some manners. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. An actor of his caliber is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with a detailed supplement composed simply