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It stands as the most iconic introduction in film history – and he remains completely still.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, must walk a corridor of cells until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, his face resembling a living skull filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile in his form-fitting prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen until the moment he throws himself against the glass, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since shown that actual serial killers are often very boring, lacking anything like the actor's commanding screen presence.

He wasn't exactly an unknown when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: he was already established, but a legend was cemented. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader as recalled by his daughter, and on his own strictly demanding drama teacher Christopher Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a painful subject for Anthony, who further explains how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his failed first union in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who disliked him being away and his drinking habits.

The book's name comes from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth hailing from 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 despised the religious hypocrites at the church and avoided showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who deeply disliked how they were forced cap-in-hand to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. 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 The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He convincingly states that verse, by itself, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing with the great Olivier at the Old Vic within 10 years. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days financial aid was available to attend Rada – a path to success for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and burst into tears.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to roles such as in the film The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, which he preferred compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. Certain stories aren't entirely successful. He remembers being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Sorvino, who sought to advise him his portrayal of Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains it is one's responsibility to get there on time, remember every crew member's name and proceed with the work. Quite so. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply