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It stands as the most iconic appearance in film history – while he stands utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, proceeds down a row of prison cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, his face resembling a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen until the moment he throws himself at the barrier, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, far from Hopkins' captivating film persona.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was cemented. His portrayal of Lecter drew influence, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his icily exacting acting coach his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a sore point for Anthony, who also describes how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by deep-seated remorse regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who disliked his absences and drinking.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who loathed the religious hypocrites in their community and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who furiously resented the necessity of going cap-in-hand to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. But one day in a literature class he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he stunned the teacher and the other boys. He convincingly states that poems, alone, started his career. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, although in those days there were grants for drama school – an opportunity for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but fortunately found a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, which he liked more over theater. He stopped drinking in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and managed to live into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of the book he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He mentions having lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Really?

He consistently acts as the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes you must to get there on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Indeed. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. A Shakespearean like him must know Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply