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Many consider it the greatest appearance in cinematic history – while he stands without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, navigates the line of detention units finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, appearing as a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless before suddenly he propels himself toward the window, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since shown that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, far from the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar emerged. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his rigorously precise Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a sore point for Hopkins, who recounts how his Lear was indirectly affected by deep-seated remorse regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and his drinking habits.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the kid who maybe thought he wouldn't succeed. He appeared lost, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a bread-maker and man's man, a straightforward talker who detested the religious hypocrites in their community and refused to showing his emotions, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who was angered by the necessity of going cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. He was a poor student at his new school. But one day in a literature class he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, launched him. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, pursued acting, and shocking his family, was performing with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days there were grants to go to Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but lucked into an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, that he favored over theater. And he quit booze during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of the memoir his character seems more elusive, more calculated. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He mentions being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Really?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it's your duty to be on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Quite so. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And learn some manners. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply