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Many consider it the most memorable introduction in cinematic history – while he stands utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, new to the job, must walk a corridor of cells until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. The man is present, with features like an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, chillingly static in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen until the moment he lunges at the barrier, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, far from Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but a legend was forged. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own strictly demanding Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a painful subject for the actor, who also describes how his King Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his failed first union back in 1966 to his first wife, who disliked his time away and drinking.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who despised the religious hypocrites at the church and avoided expressing his feelings, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who deeply disliked the necessity of going humbly to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. However, one day in a literature class he had to recite the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other boys. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, 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 acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days financial aid was available for drama school – an opportunity for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but lucked into a great TV role as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, which he liked more to the stage. He gave up alcohol during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and managed to live into his later years to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more studied. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He recalls having lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who thinks it is one's responsibility to be on time, remember every crew member's name and proceed with the work. Indeed. But he also recounts facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. Should you ever act that way near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply