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Widely regarded as the most memorable entrance in film history – and he remains without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, a rookie, proceeds down the line of detention units finally encountering Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, his face resembling an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move right up until he throws himself toward the window, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless real-crime films have since shown that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not a newcomer when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: he was already established, instead, a superstar was forged. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own icily exacting Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a difficult topic for the actor, who further explains how his Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his absences and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and refused to showing his emotions, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked how they were forced begging to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he shouts during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, temporarily. He was a poor student at his new school. However, one day in an English lesson he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and the other boys. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, started his career. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days financial aid was available to attend Rada – a way up for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, which he preferred over theater. And he quit booze during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and thus made it through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, such as Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He mentions going out for lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Quite so. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply