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Widely regarded as the most iconic appearance in cinematic history – and he remains completely still.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, must walk the line of detention units finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, with features like a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He stands frozen right up until he throws himself toward the window, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that real-life murderers are often very boring, with nothing resembling Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar was cemented. The character of Hannibal drew influence, the actor happily remembers in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his rigorously precise acting coach his mentor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a sore point for Hopkins, who further explains how his Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to his first wife, who disliked his time away and his drinking habits.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a baker and man's man, a plain speaker who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and avoided displaying emotion, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who was angered by the necessity of going humbly to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and could get young Anthony into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves 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 at his new school. However, one day during an English class he was required to perform John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He reasonably claims that verse, by itself, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, went into acting, and shocking his family, was performing with the great Olivier at the Old Vic within 10 years. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time there were grants for drama school – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but lucked into an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, that he favored to the stage. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and thus made it into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more calculated. A few tales fall a bit flat. He remembers being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Really?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who believes you must to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Quite so. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply