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It stands as the greatest appearance in film history – and he remains utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, proceeds down the line of detention units arriving at Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, his face resembling a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, chillingly static clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move right up until he throws himself at the barrier, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless real-crime films have since revealed that genuine criminals are often very boring, lacking anything like the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film back in 1989: he was already established, but a legend emerged. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and on his own rigorously precise drama teacher his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a painful subject for Hopkins, who further explains how his Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who disliked his time away and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a baker and man's man, a straightforward talker who detested the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and refused to showing his emotions, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who deeply disliked how they were forced humbly to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. Then, during during an English class he had to recite 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 reasonably claims that verse, by itself, started his career. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated without much hope, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time there were grants to go to Rada – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but stumbled upon an excellent television part playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he preferred to the stage. And he quit booze in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it through midlife to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of the memoir his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He remembers having lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with the director's criticism that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Is that so?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains it is one's responsibility to get there on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Quite so. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And develop some respect. Should you ever act that way near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply