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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, new to the job, navigates the line of detention units until she reaches Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. The man is present, his face resembling a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, chillingly static in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move right up until he throws himself toward the window, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous real-crime films have since demonstrated that genuine criminals are often very boring, with nothing resembling the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly an unknown when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but a legend emerged. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and on his own strictly demanding acting coach Christopher Fettes. There was also a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a difficult topic for the actor, who also describes how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who disliked him being away and his drinking habits.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a pastry chef and man's man, a plain speaker who loathed the religious hypocrites at the church and refused to showing his emotions, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who was angered by the necessity of going cap-in-hand to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. However, one day during an English class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and the other boys. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, pursued acting, and shocking his family, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time scholarships existed to go to Rada – a path to success for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but fortunately found a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, that he favored to the stage. He stopped drinking in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and thus made it through midlife to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He mentions being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Is that so?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes it's your duty to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and proceed with the work. Quite so. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply