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Widely regarded as the most iconic introduction in movie lore – yet the actor stays completely still.

The FBI trainee, a rookie, navigates the line of detention units until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, appearing as a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile in his form-fitting prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move before suddenly he throws himself against the glass, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of real-crime films have since demonstrated that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, far from Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

He was not a newcomer at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but a legend emerged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his rigorously precise acting coach Christopher Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a painful subject for Hopkins, who also describes how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the kid who maybe thought he would never do OK. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a baker and man's man, a plain speaker who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and refused to expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who was angered by the necessity of going begging to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and was able to secure young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. He was a poor student in his new institution. However, one day in an English lesson he had to recite John Masefield's poem The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, launched him. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Notably, he graduated with low prospects, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days scholarships existed to go to Rada – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but lucked into a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he preferred over theater. And he quit booze 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 film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He recalls being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains it is one's responsibility to be on time, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Indeed. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply