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Many consider it the greatest appearance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, navigates a row of prison cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, appearing as a living skull exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen until the moment he propels himself against the glass, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since shown that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, far from Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was forged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own icily exacting drama teacher his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a painful subject for Hopkins, who recounts how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his failed first union back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who disliked his time away and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from an historical picture of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented how they were forced humbly to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. But one day during an English class he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other boys. He reasonably claims that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Notably, he graduated without much hope, entered the acting world, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time scholarships existed to go to Rada – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but fortunately found a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, that he favored to the stage. And he quit booze during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and so survived into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He remembers being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Hardly. He tends to concur with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who thinks you must to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Indeed. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And develop some respect. Should you ever act that way near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink but maybe not the belligerence that came with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply