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Many consider it the most iconic introduction in film history – while he stands utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, proceeds down a corridor of cells arriving at Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, his face resembling a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move right up until he propels himself toward the window, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of real-crime films have since shown that genuine criminals are often very boring, lacking anything like the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar was forged. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his icily exacting Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a difficult topic for Hopkins, who also describes how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a direct communicator who detested the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and didn't believe in displaying emotion, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who deeply disliked the necessity of going humbly to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. Then, during in a literature class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He convincingly states that verse, by itself, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then financial aid was available to go to Rada – an opportunity 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 Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which paved the way to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, that he favored to the stage. And he quit booze during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it into his later years to execute great performances, like Hannibal 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 second Oscar.

During the second part of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He recalls going out for lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Really?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who maintains you must to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Absolutely. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! He appears to be a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply