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It stands as the greatest appearance in movie lore – yet the actor stays completely still.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, navigates the line of detention units arriving at the notorious doctor's transparent prison. He is positioned, with features like an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless before suddenly he lunges against the glass, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since shown that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, far from Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: he was already established, instead, a superstar emerged. The character of Hannibal drew influence, the actor happily remembers in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and on his own rigorously precise Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a difficult topic for the actor, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret about Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to his first wife, who was angered by his time away and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who was angered by the way they had to go humbly to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he exclaims while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. Then, during during an English class he had to recite the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and the other students. He convincingly states that verse, by itself, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater within 10 years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days there were grants to go to Rada – a way up for working-class actors. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but fortunately found a memorable TV character playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, which he preferred compared to stage acting. And he quit booze back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and so survived into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He remembers having lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not really. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Really?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes you must to get there on time, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Quite so. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply