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It stands as the most memorable entrance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, navigates the line of detention units until she reaches the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. The man is present, appearing as an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen before suddenly he lunges against the glass, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like Hopkins' captivating film persona.

He was not a newcomer at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film in 1989: he was already established, instead, a superstar was cemented. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his rigorously precise drama teacher his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a painful subject for Anthony, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented his time away and his drinking habits.

The title originates from an historical picture of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a baker and a tough individual, a direct communicator who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and avoided displaying emotion, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who was angered by how they were forced humbly to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. However, one day in an English lesson he had to recite the verse by John Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, started his career. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time scholarships existed for drama school – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but lucked into an excellent television part playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, that he favored over theater. He stopped drinking back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of the memoir his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He recalls going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting due to resentment. Is that so?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains it's your duty to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. 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 around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply