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Widely regarded as the greatest entrance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, a rookie, proceeds down a row of prison cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, his face resembling an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless until the moment he throws himself against the glass, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of real-crime films have since revealed that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

He was not a newcomer when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: he was already established, but a legend was forged. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and also from his icily exacting acting coach Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a sore point for Hopkins, who recounts how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who was angered by his absences and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a pastry chef and man's man, a direct communicator who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and avoided displaying emotion, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented how they were forced cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. However, one day during an English class he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, launched him. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time scholarships existed for drama school – an opportunity for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, that he favored to the stage. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into his later years to execute great performances, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of the memoir his character seems more elusive, more studied. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He mentions being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for him to absorb something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes it is one's responsibility to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Indeed. However, he also describes facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And develop some respect. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply