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Widely regarded as the most iconic entrance in movie lore – and he remains completely still.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, proceeds down the line of detention units finally encountering the notorious doctor's transparent prison. He is positioned, with features like an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move until the moment he lunges against the glass, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like the actor's captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: he was already established, but a legend was forged. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and also from his rigorously precise drama teacher his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a difficult topic for Anthony, who also describes how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage in 1966 to his first wife, who resented his time away and drinking.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a baker and man's man, a direct communicator who loathed the religious hypocrites in their community and didn't believe in showing his emotions, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the necessity of going begging to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he exclaims while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. However, one day during an English class he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and the other students. He convincingly states that verse, by itself, launched him. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated without much hope, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, although in those days financial aid was available for drama school – a way up for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe by his son's international fame: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which eventually resulted to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in cinema, that he favored compared to stage acting. He gave up alcohol during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and so survived through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of the book he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He recalls going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for him to absorb something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Really?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains you must to be on time, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Quite so. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And learn some manners. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply