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It stands as the most memorable appearance in film history – and he remains utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, a rookie, proceeds down the line of detention units arriving at Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, with features like an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen before suddenly he lunges against the glass, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. A multitude of documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, far from Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly a newcomer at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: he was already established, instead, a superstar emerged. His Dr. Lecter was based, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own rigorously precise Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a difficult topic for Anthony, who also describes how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to his first wife, who was angered by his absences and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from a vintage war-era photograph of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a baker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and didn't believe in showing his emotions, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented the necessity of going cap-in-hand to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and could get young Anthony into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves during the car ride. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. But one day during an English class he had to recite the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He convincingly states that poems, alone, propelled him forward. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, went into acting, and shocking his family, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater within 10 years. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then there were grants to go to Rada – an opportunity for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but stumbled upon a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, which he preferred to the stage. And he quit booze in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and so survived into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He recalls going out for lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who believes it's your duty to be on time, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Quite so. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply