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

A young FBI agent, new to the job, navigates a row of prison cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, with features like an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless before suddenly he lunges against the glass, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not an unknown when he landed that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: he was already established, but a legend emerged. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own icily exacting Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a painful subject for the actor, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who resented his time away and drinking.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the kid who maybe thought he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a plain speaker who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and didn't believe in displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who was angered by the necessity of going cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. He was a poor student at his new school. But one day during an English class he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He reasonably claims that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time financial aid was available for drama school – a way up for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and began crying.

Regarding the fiery, stubborn individual, he departed the theatrical troupe out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but fortunately found a great TV role as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, that he favored compared to stage acting. And he quit booze back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and so survived through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Academy Award.

During the second part of the memoir he appears more reserved, more studied. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He mentions going out for lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Is that so?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains you must to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and do the job. Quite so. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. 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 accompanied it. An actor of his caliber must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a detailed supplement composed simply