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Many consider it the most iconic introduction in film history – while he stands utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, navigates the line of detention units until she reaches the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, with features like an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless until the moment he lunges toward the window, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since shown that actual serial killers are often very boring, lacking anything like the actor's commanding screen presence.

He was not an unknown upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in the 1991 thriller during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar was cemented. His portrayal of Lecter was based, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his icily exacting Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. There was also a paternal-filial aspect to these scenes; a painful subject for Anthony, who recounts how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt about Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage back in 1966 to his first wife, who resented his absences and his alcohol use.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a baker and man's man, a direct communicator who detested the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and refused to expressing his feelings, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who was angered by the way they had to go begging to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and could get young Anthony into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. He was a poor student in his new institution. But one day in a literature class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater within 10 years. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time there were grants for drama school – a way up for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but fortunately found a memorable TV character as a potential 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 in cinema, which he liked more compared to stage acting. And he quit booze back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of the memoir he appears more reserved, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He remembers being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Indeed. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply