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It stands as the most memorable entrance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, must walk a row of prison cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, his face resembling an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, chillingly static in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless until the moment he lunges against the glass, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since revealed that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like the actor's captivating film persona.

He was not unrecognized when he landed that Oscar-winning role in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: he was already established, but a legend was cemented. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his icily exacting drama teacher his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a difficult topic for Anthony, who recounts how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who disliked his absences and his drinking habits.

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 felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a pastry chef and man's man, a direct communicator who detested the religious hypocrites of the chapel and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked how they were forced humbly to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. But one day in an English lesson he was required to perform John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated without much hope, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then scholarships existed to go to Rada – a way up for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but fortunately found a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which paved the way to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, which he preferred to the stage. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He mentions having lunch by his co-star in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes you must to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Indeed. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply