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Widely regarded as the greatest entrance in movie lore – while he stands utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, new to the job, navigates a row of prison cells finally encountering Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, with features like an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless right up until he lunges at the barrier, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, far from Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly a newcomer at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: he was already established, but a legend emerged. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, as well as his icily exacting drama teacher his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a painful subject for the actor, who also describes how his King Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 to his first wife, who disliked his absences and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a direct communicator who detested the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and avoided displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who furiously resented the way they had to go cap-in-hand to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. He was a poor student in his new institution. However, one day in an English lesson he had to recite the poem by Masefield The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and the other boys. He convincingly states that poems, alone, launched him. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage with Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time scholarships existed to attend Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but lucked into a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, which he preferred over theater. He stopped drinking in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live through midlife to execute great performances, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He remembers having lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains you must to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Indeed. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply