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It stands as the greatest entrance in movie lore – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, must walk the line of detention units arriving at Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, his face resembling a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, chillingly static in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move until the moment he propels himself at the barrier, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous real-crime films have since revealed that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, far from the actor's commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film in 1989: he was already established, instead, a superstar was forged. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his strictly demanding acting coach Christopher Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a painful subject for Hopkins, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by deep-seated remorse regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his failed first union during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time away and his alcohol use.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and avoided displaying emotion, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked how they were forced humbly to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and could get the young Anthony into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. He was a poor student in his new institution. But one day in a literature class he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, started his career. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated with low prospects, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time there were grants to go to Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but stumbled upon an excellent television part playing an alleged war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, which he preferred to the stage. And he quit booze back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and managed to live into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of the book he appears more reserved, more studied. A few tales 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 intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for him to absorb something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Is that so?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes it's your duty to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Absolutely. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And learn some manners. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply