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It stands as the most memorable entrance in cinematic history – while he stands completely still.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, navigates a corridor of cells arriving at Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, appearing as an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He remains motionless before suddenly he lunges against the glass, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that actual serial killers are often very boring, far from Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not a newcomer at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar was forged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own strictly demanding Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a difficult topic for Anthony, who recounts how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and drinking.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and didn't believe in displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented how they were forced begging to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims during the car ride. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. Then, during in a literature class he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, started his career. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time financial aid was available to attend Rada – a path to success for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he departed the theatrical troupe out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but lucked into a great TV role as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, that he favored over theater. He stopped drinking in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of the memoir he appears more reserved, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He mentions having lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven by jealousy. Really?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who thinks you must to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Indeed. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologize to that girl! And learn some manners. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply