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Widely regarded as the most iconic appearance in movie lore – while he stands completely still.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, must walk a row of prison cells arriving at Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, his face resembling a living skull filled with sinister intent, chillingly static in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move until the moment he lunges at the barrier, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of real-crime films have since revealed that real-life murderers are often very boring, lacking anything like Hopkins' captivating film persona.

He was not an unknown upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar was cemented. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and on his own strictly demanding acting coach Christopher Fettes. Additionally, there existed a paternal-filial aspect to these scenes; a painful subject for Hopkins, who recounts how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who was angered by his absences and drinking.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and avoided showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented how they were forced humbly to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” 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 while. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. But one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and the other students. He reasonably claims that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with the great Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then there were grants for drama school – an opportunity for actors from humble backgrounds. His dad remained in awe by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but lucked into a great TV role as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, that he favored to the stage. And he quit booze back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live into middle age to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of the memoir he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He mentions having lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Really?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who thinks it is one's responsibility to get there on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Quite so. But he also recounts facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply