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Many consider it the greatest entrance in movie lore – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, must walk a row of prison cells until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. There he stands, his face resembling a living skull radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless right up until he throws himself against the glass, emitting that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that actual serial killers are often very boring, with nothing resembling Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

He was not an unknown upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: he was already established, but a legend emerged. His portrayal of Lecter was based, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and also from his strictly demanding drama teacher his mentor Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a painful subject for Hopkins, who further explains how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 to his first wife, who resented his absences and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the kid who maybe thought he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a baker and a tough individual, a direct communicator who detested the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and refused to displaying emotion, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented the way they had to go humbly to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. However, one day in an English lesson he was required to perform John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and the other boys. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, launched him. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then there were grants for drama school – an opportunity for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but lucked into a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, which he preferred compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and thus made it through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of the memoir he appears more reserved, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He remembers being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Really?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains you must to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Indeed. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply