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Widely regarded as the greatest appearance in film history – and he remains completely still.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, proceeds down the line of detention units until she reaches Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. There he stands, with features like a living skull exuding demonic evil, chillingly static clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen right up until he propels himself against the glass, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of real-crime films have since revealed that actual serial killers are often very boring, with nothing resembling the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: he was already established, instead, a superstar emerged. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his rigorously precise Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a painful subject for the actor, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented his time away and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a baker and a tough individual, a direct communicator who detested the religious hypocrites of the chapel and didn't believe in displaying emotion, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who furiously resented the way they had to go cap-in-hand to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. Then, during during an English class he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic within 10 years. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days there were grants for drama school – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but stumbled upon an excellent television part 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 in cinema, which he liked more compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and thus made it through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He mentions being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for him to absorb something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who thinks you must to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and proceed with the work. Indeed. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply