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Widely regarded as the most iconic entrance in cinematic history – and he remains completely still.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, proceeds down a row of prison cells until she reaches the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. He is positioned, with features like a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen right up until he propels himself at the barrier, emitting that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous real-crime films have since revealed that real-life murderers are often very boring, far from Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized when he landed that Oscar-winning role in the 1991 thriller in 1989: a star wasn't born, but a legend was cemented. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, and also from his rigorously precise drama teacher his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a painful subject for Anthony, who recounts how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt about Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who resented his time away and drinking.

The title originates from an historical picture of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He appeared lost, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a baker and a tough individual, a plain speaker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and refused to expressing his feelings, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked how they were forced humbly to affluent family members like Auntie 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 shouts in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. Then, during in a literature class he had to recite John Masefield's poem titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was performing with the great Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, although in those days scholarships existed to attend Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, which he liked more over theater. And he quit booze during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of the memoir his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He recalls having lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. He tends to concur with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Is that so?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who thinks you must to be on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Quite so. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” He appears to be a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply