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Many consider it the most iconic introduction in film history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, must walk a row of prison cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, his face resembling a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move until the moment he lunges at the barrier, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since revealed that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not an unknown at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar was forged. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and also from his icily exacting Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a painful subject for the actor, who further explains how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who disliked him being away and drinking.

The book's name comes from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child with his father at the seaside – the kid who maybe thought he would never do OK. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a direct communicator who detested the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and refused to expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented the necessity of going begging to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. However, one day during an English class he was required to perform John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, started his career. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school a no-hoper, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days scholarships existed for drama school – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to recite the Yorick speech from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, that he favored to the stage. He gave up alcohol back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into his later years to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the latter half of the book his character seems more elusive, more studied. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He remembers being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it is one's responsibility to be on time, know all the crew's names and do the job. Quite so. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A Shakespearean like him must know Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply