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Widely regarded as the most memorable introduction in film history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, navigates a corridor of cells arriving at Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. He is positioned, with features like a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move until the moment he lunges at the barrier, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, far from the actor's captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar emerged. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, as well as his icily exacting drama teacher his mentor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a sore point for Anthony, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to his first wife, who disliked his time away and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a bread-maker and man's man, a straightforward talker who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and avoided displaying emotion, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked how they were forced humbly to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves during the car ride. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. He was a poor student at his new school. However, one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then financial aid was available to attend Rada – a path to success for working-class actors. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but lucked into a great TV role as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in cinema, which he liked more over theater. He stopped drinking in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the latter half of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more studied. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He mentions being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who believes it's your duty to be on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Absolutely. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And learn some manners. 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. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply