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It stands as the greatest entrance in cinematic history – while he stands utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, must walk a row of prison cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, with features like a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless until the moment he lunges toward the window, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless documentaries on serial killers have since shown that genuine criminals are often very boring, lacking anything like the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not a newcomer upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar emerged. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own rigorously precise drama teacher his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a painful subject for Hopkins, who also describes how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 to his first wife, who resented his absences and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from a vintage war-era photograph 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 from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a bread-maker and man's man, a plain speaker who loathed the religious hypocrites of the chapel and avoided expressing his feelings, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who deeply disliked the way they had to go cap-in-hand to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, for a while. He was a poor student in his new institution. However, one day in a literature class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He convincingly states that poems, alone, started his career. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated without much hope, entered the acting world, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then there were grants to attend Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, strong-willed son, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to roles such as in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, which he liked more compared to stage acting. And he quit booze during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and so survived through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He recalls going out for lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his portrayal of Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Really?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who thinks it's your duty to be on time, know all the crew's names and proceed with the work. Absolutely. But he also recounts facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply