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It stands as the most memorable appearance in film history – while he stands without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, navigates the line of detention units finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. He is positioned, with features like a living skull filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He remains motionless until the moment he propels himself against the glass, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: he was already established, but a legend was forged. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own strictly demanding drama teacher his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a painful subject for Anthony, who also describes how his King Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who disliked his time away and his drinking habits.

The title originates from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who loathed the religious hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented the way they had to go cap-in-hand to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “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, temporarily. He was a poor student in his new institution. Then, during in an English lesson he was required to perform the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and the other boys. He reasonably claims that verse, by itself, started his career. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated with low prospects, went into acting, and shocking his family, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then financial aid was available to attend Rada – a path to success for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but stumbled upon an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which eventually resulted to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, which he preferred to the stage. He stopped drinking back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of the memoir he appears more reserved, more studied. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He recalls having lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Truly?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes you must to get there on time, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Indeed. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. A Shakespearean like him must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply