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It stands as the most iconic introduction in movie lore – while he stands completely still.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, proceeds down a row of prison cells until she reaches the notorious doctor's transparent prison. The man is present, appearing as an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move right up until he lunges toward the window, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar was forged. The character of Hannibal drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and also from his icily exacting Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a paternal-filial aspect to these scenes; a painful subject for the actor, who also describes how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who disliked his time away and drinking.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a baker and man's man, a plain speaker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and refused to expressing his feelings, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who was angered by how they were forced humbly to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he shouts during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. However, one day in a literature class he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and the other boys. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, started his career. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and to the astonishment of 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 to attend Rada – a path to success for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but lucked into a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in cinema, which he preferred to the stage. He stopped drinking back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and so survived into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of the memoir his character seems more elusive, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He mentions being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in the film Nixon, the highly regarded performer Sorvino, who sought to advise him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Truly?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who believes it is one's responsibility to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Indeed. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And learn some manners. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply