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Widely regarded as the greatest appearance in movie lore – while he stands without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, new to the job, navigates a corridor of cells until she reaches the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, with features like a living skull exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He stands frozen before suddenly he throws himself against the glass, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless true-crime documentaries have since revealed that actual serial killers are often very boring, with nothing resembling the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but a legend emerged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader as recalled by his daughter, as well as his strictly demanding drama teacher his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect to these scenes; a difficult topic for Hopkins, who further explains how his Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt about Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union during the 60s to his first wife, who was angered by his absences and drinking.

The title originates from an historical picture of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a plain speaker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and avoided displaying emotion, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who furiously resented the necessity of going begging to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he shouts during the car ride. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. However, one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, pursued acting, and shocking his family, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then financial aid was available to go to Rada – a way up for working-class actors. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but lucked into a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he liked more over theater. He gave up alcohol during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and thus made it through midlife to execute great performances, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

During the second part of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more calculated. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He mentions being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who believes it is one's responsibility to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Quite so. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply