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

The FBI trainee, a rookie, navigates a corridor of cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, with features like an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless until the moment he lunges toward the window, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless true-crime documentaries have since shown that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, far from Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film in 1989: a star wasn't born, but a legend was cemented. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, and also from his rigorously precise drama teacher his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a sore point for the actor, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who disliked him being away and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a baker and a traditional male, a plain speaker who detested the religious hypocrites at the church and refused to showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who was angered by how they were forced begging to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. Then, during in a literature class he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and the other students. He convincingly states that poems, alone, started his career. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, pursued acting, and shocking his family, was on stage with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic within 10 years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days scholarships existed for drama school – an opportunity for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but fortunately found an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which paved the way to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, which he preferred to the stage. He stopped drinking in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He remembers being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for him to absorb something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. He tends to concur with the director's criticism that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes it's your duty to be on time, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Absolutely. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply