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Many consider it the most memorable introduction in movie lore – while he stands utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, proceeds down a row of prison cells arriving at Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. There he stands, with features like an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, chillingly static clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen right up until he propels himself against the glass, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous real-crime films have since shown that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like the actor's commanding screen presence.

He was not a newcomer when he landed that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar was forged. His portrayal of Lecter drew influence, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own rigorously precise Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a sore point for Hopkins, who further explains how his Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who disliked his absences and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the kid who maybe thought he would never do OK. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and refused to expressing his feelings, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented how they were forced cap-in-hand to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts during the car ride. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. Then, during in a literature class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, started his career. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated with low prospects, went into acting, and shocking his family, was acting with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic within 10 years. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time there were grants for drama school – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, which he liked more to the stage. He stopped drinking back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and managed to live through midlife to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He remembers being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. He tends to concur with the director's criticism that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Really?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains it is one's responsibility to get there on time, know all the crew's names and proceed with the work. Quite so. However, he also describes confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply