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Many consider it the most iconic introduction in movie lore – yet the actor stays completely still.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, proceeds down the line of detention units finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. There he stands, with features like a living skull radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen until the moment he lunges at the barrier, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since revealed that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like the actor's commanding screen presence.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar emerged. The character of Hannibal drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and also from his rigorously precise drama teacher Christopher Fettes. Additionally, there existed a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a painful subject for the actor, who also describes how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time away and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from an historical picture of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in this story: a baker and man's man, a plain speaker who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and avoided expressing his feelings, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked how they were forced humbly to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and could get the young Anthony into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he exclaims while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. Then, during during an English class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and the other students. He convincingly states that verse, by itself, propelled him forward. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time financial aid was available to attend Rada – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but fortunately found a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, which he preferred to the stage. He gave up alcohol during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into middle age to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He mentions going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting due to resentment. Really?

He consistently acts as the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who thinks you must to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Indeed. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply