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Many consider it the greatest appearance in cinematic history – while he stands without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, must walk the line of detention units finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. There he stands, appearing as a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen right up until he propels himself at the barrier, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous real-crime films have since shown that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling Hopkins' captivating film persona.

He was not a newcomer at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: he was already established, but a legend was forged. His portrayal of Lecter drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own icily exacting acting coach Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a painful subject for the actor, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who disliked him being away and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in this story: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a direct communicator who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and didn't believe in displaying emotion, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who was angered by the way they had to go begging to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. Then, during in an English lesson he was required to perform the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, 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 financial aid was available to attend Rada – a way up for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he departed the theatrical troupe out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but lucked into an excellent television part playing an alleged 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 on screen, which he liked more over theater. And he quit booze back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward 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 latter half of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more studied. A few tales fall a bit flat. He remembers being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. He tends to concur with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Really?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes you must to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Quite so. However, he also describes confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply