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It stands as the most iconic entrance in film history – and he remains completely still.

The FBI trainee, a rookie, navigates a corridor of cells arriving at Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, with features like a living skull filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen until the moment he propels himself toward the window, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since revealed that actual serial killers are often very boring, lacking anything like Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not an unknown when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar was forged. The character of Hannibal was based, the actor happily remembers in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader as recalled by his daughter, and on his own strictly demanding Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a difficult topic for Hopkins, who further explains how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union in 1966 to his first wife, who disliked his absences and his drinking habits.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and avoided showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked how they were forced cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. Then, during in an English lesson he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, launched him. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, went into acting, and shocking his family, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time scholarships existed for drama school – an opportunity for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively 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 – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but fortunately found an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he liked more to the stage. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and managed to live into middle age to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He remembers having lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Really?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it is one's responsibility to get there on time, know all the crew's names and proceed with the work. Indeed. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that came with it. A Shakespearean like him must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A straightforward and sincere nature – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply