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Many consider it the greatest entrance in film history – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, must walk the line of detention units until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, his face resembling a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen right up until he propels himself toward the window, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous real-crime films have since demonstrated that genuine criminals are often very boring, with nothing resembling Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar was forged. His portrayal of Lecter drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and on his own rigorously precise drama teacher his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a paternal-filial aspect to these scenes; a sore point for Hopkins, who also describes how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his failed first union in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who disliked his time away and drinking.

The book's name comes from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child with his father at the seaside – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a baker and man's man, a plain speaker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the necessity of going cap-in-hand to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and could get young Anthony into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves during the car ride. “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. Then, during in an English lesson he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time there were grants to attend Rada – a way up for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but fortunately found a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, which he preferred over theater. And he quit booze in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and thus made it into his later years to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He remembers having lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it's your duty to get there on time, know all the crew's names and proceed with the work. Absolutely. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And develop some respect. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply