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It stands as the most memorable entrance in film history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, must walk a row of prison cells finally encountering the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, appearing as a living skull filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move until the moment he propels himself against the glass, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless real-crime films have since demonstrated that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: a star wasn't born, but a legend emerged. His portrayal of Lecter drew influence, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and also from his icily exacting Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a painful subject for the actor, who also describes how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and drinking.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a baker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who despised the religious hypocrites in their community and refused to showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented the necessity of going begging to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and was able to secure young Anthony into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, for a time. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. But one day during an English class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and the other students. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days scholarships existed to go to Rada – a way up for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, that he favored over theater. And he quit booze back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of the book he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He mentions going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting due to resentment. Really?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who believes you must to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Indeed. But he also recounts facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply