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Many consider it the greatest appearance in film history – and he remains completely still.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, must walk a corridor of cells finally encountering Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, his face resembling a living skull exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move before suddenly he throws himself toward the window, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of real-crime films have since revealed that real-life murderers are often very boring, far from Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in the 1991 thriller in 1989: he was already established, but a legend was forged. His portrayal of Lecter drew influence, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own strictly demanding drama teacher his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a paternal-filial aspect to these scenes; a painful subject for Anthony, who recounts how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret about Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy hailing from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a bread-maker and man's man, a straightforward talker who detested the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and refused to displaying emotion, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented the way they had to go begging to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, temporarily. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. Then, during in a literature class he had to recite the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, started his career. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, although in those days there were grants for drama school – an opportunity for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but fortunately found a great TV role as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, which he preferred to the stage. He stopped drinking in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and thus made it into middle age to execute great performances, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. Certain stories aren't entirely successful. He remembers being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who believes it's your duty to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Indeed. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And learn some manners. Should you ever act that way near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply