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Widely regarded as the greatest entrance in movie lore – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, navigates the line of detention units until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, with features like a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, chillingly static in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless right up until he lunges at the barrier, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, far from the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not a newcomer at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but a legend was cemented. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, as well as his rigorously precise acting coach his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a difficult topic for Hopkins, who also describes how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who disliked his absences and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a direct communicator who detested the religious hypocrites of the chapel and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who deeply disliked the way they had to go humbly to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. Then, during during an English class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was performing with the great Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time financial aid was available for drama school – a path to success for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and burst into tears.

Regarding the fiery, strong-willed son, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but lucked into an excellent television part playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, which he liked more to the stage. And he quit booze in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into middle age to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He mentions being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who believes you must to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Absolutely. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! He appears to be someone who gave up drink yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply