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Many consider it the most iconic entrance in movie lore – and he remains completely still.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, must walk a row of prison cells until she reaches the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. The man is present, his face resembling a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move right up until he throws himself at the barrier, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since shown that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like Hopkins' captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly a newcomer upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar was forged. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his strictly demanding acting coach his mentor Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a difficult topic for Hopkins, who also describes how his Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret about Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who resented his absences and his alcohol use.

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 would never do OK. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in this story: a pastry chef and man's man, a plain speaker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and refused to displaying emotion, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who furiously resented the necessity of going begging to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and could get young Anthony into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims during the car ride. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. But one day during an English class he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and the other students. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, started his career. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time scholarships existed to attend Rada – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but stumbled upon an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, that he favored to the stage. He gave up alcohol in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and managed to live through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the latter half of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He remembers going out for lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his portrayal of Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Really?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it is one's responsibility to be on time, know all the crew's names and proceed with the work. Absolutely. But he also recounts facing a rude 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 an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply