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Many consider it the greatest entrance in film history – while he stands completely still.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, navigates a corridor of cells finally encountering Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. The man is present, his face resembling a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, chillingly static clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move right up until he lunges at the barrier, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless real-crime films have since revealed that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film in 1989: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar emerged. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own icily exacting Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a painful subject for Anthony, who recounts how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage during the 60s with Petronella Barker, who resented his absences and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he wouldn't succeed. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child hailing from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a baker and a tough individual, a plain speaker who despised the religious hypocrites at the church and refused to displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who was angered by the necessity of going begging to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims during the car ride. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. However, one day during an English class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage with the great Olivier at the famous theater within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time there were grants for drama school – an opportunity for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but lucked into a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, that he favored over theater. He stopped drinking back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He remembers being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven by jealousy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes it is one's responsibility to get there on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Quite so. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. An actor of his caliber is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply