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Widely regarded as the most iconic introduction in film history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, must walk a corridor of cells arriving at Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, appearing as an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, chillingly static wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He stands frozen until the moment he propels himself toward the window, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that real-life murderers are often very boring, lacking anything like the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized when he landed that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but a legend emerged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, as well as his strictly demanding Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a painful subject for Hopkins, who recounts how his King Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union during the 60s to his first wife, who disliked his absences and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and refused to showing his emotions, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked how they were forced cap-in-hand to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves during the car ride. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, for a while. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. However, one day in a literature class he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing with the great Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time scholarships existed to go to Rada – a way up for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but stumbled upon an excellent television part playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to roles such as in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, which he preferred compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and managed to live into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the latter half of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more studied. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He mentions being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for him to absorb something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it is one's responsibility to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Indeed. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. Should you ever act that way in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a detailed supplement composed simply