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It stands as the greatest entrance in film history – and he remains completely still.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, navigates the line of detention units arriving at Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. There he stands, appearing as a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile in his form-fitting prisoner's blue outfit. He remains motionless before suddenly he lunges against the glass, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since shown that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling the actor's captivating film persona.

He was not unrecognized at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: he was already established, but a legend emerged. His portrayal of Lecter drew influence, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own rigorously precise acting coach his mentor Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a painful subject for Hopkins, who further explains how his King Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage in 1966 to his first wife, who disliked his absences and drinking.

The title originates from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a baker and a tough individual, a direct communicator who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and avoided displaying emotion, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who was angered by the necessity of going humbly to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. He was a poor student at his new school. Then, during in an English lesson he was required to perform John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other boys. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, went into acting, and shocking his family, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days there were grants to go to Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but stumbled upon an excellent television part playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, which he preferred to the stage. He gave up alcohol during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He mentions being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in the film Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and do the job. Absolutely. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply