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Widely regarded as the most memorable entrance in film history – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, proceeds down a corridor of cells until she reaches the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. The man is present, appearing as a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move before suddenly he propels himself against the glass, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since revealed that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like the actor's captivating film persona.

He was not an unknown at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in the 1991 thriller during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar was forged. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his rigorously precise acting coach his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a painful subject for Hopkins, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who disliked his absences and drinking.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who detested the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and didn't believe in showing his emotions, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented how they were forced begging to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. He was a poor student at his new school. However, one day in a literature class he was required to perform John Masefield's poem The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time scholarships existed to attend Rada – an opportunity for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but fortunately found an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, which he liked more over theater. And he quit booze during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of the book his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. Certain stories aren't entirely successful. He mentions going out for lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Really?

He consistently acts as the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes you must to be on time, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Indeed. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent in King 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