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Many consider it the greatest introduction in movie lore – while he stands without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, navigates the line of detention units until she reaches the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, with features like a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen before suddenly he lunges at the barrier, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since revealed that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

He was not unrecognized upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar was forged. The character of Hannibal drew influence, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, as well as his rigorously precise Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a sore point for Anthony, who further explains how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who disliked his time away and his drinking habits.

The title originates from an historical picture of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a baker and man's man, a straightforward talker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and refused to showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who was angered by the necessity of going begging to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. Then, during during an English class he had to recite John Masefield's poem The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He convincingly states that verse, by itself, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic within 10 years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days financial aid was available to attend Rada – a way up for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but fortunately found an excellent television part playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, which he liked more over theater. He gave up alcohol during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of the memoir he appears more reserved, more studied. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He mentions having lunch with his fellow actor in the film Nixon, the highly regarded performer Sorvino, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains you must to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Indeed. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. Should you ever act that way near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply