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Widely regarded as the most memorable appearance in movie lore – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, proceeds down a row of prison cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, with features like an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, chillingly static in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move right up until he propels himself toward the window, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since revealed that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like the actor's commanding screen presence.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar was cemented. The character of Hannibal was inspired, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and also from his strictly demanding Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a painful subject for Hopkins, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by deep-seated remorse regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who disliked him being away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a baker and man's man, a direct communicator who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and didn't believe in displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the way they had to go cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. However, one day in an English lesson he had to recite John Masefield's poem titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, started his career. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then there were grants to go to Rada – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which eventually resulted to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, that he favored compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, such as Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the latter half of the book his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He mentions having lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who sought to advise him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Really?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes it's your duty to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Absolutely. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. An actor of his caliber is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply