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It stands as the greatest appearance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays completely still.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, proceeds down the line of detention units finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, with features like a living skull radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He stands frozen right up until he lunges against the glass, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not unrecognized at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film during the late 80s: a star wasn't born, but a legend was forged. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader as recalled by his daughter, and also from his rigorously precise drama teacher Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a painful subject for Anthony, who further explains how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time away and his alcohol use.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a bread-maker and man's man, a plain speaker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and didn't believe in displaying emotion, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented the necessity of going begging to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure young Anthony into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. Then, during in an English lesson he had to recite the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He convincingly states that verse, by itself, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, although in those days scholarships existed to go to Rada – a path to success for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but fortunately found a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, that he favored compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and thus made it through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of the memoir his character seems more elusive, more calculated. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He recalls being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes you must to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and do the job. Absolutely. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply