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Many consider it the most memorable introduction in cinematic history – while he stands completely still.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, navigates a row of prison cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, his face resembling a living skull radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move right up until he lunges toward the window, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless documentaries on serial killers have since shown that real-life murderers are often very boring, lacking anything like the actor's commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar was cemented. The character of Hannibal drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and also from his icily exacting Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. Additionally, there existed a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a painful subject for Hopkins, who recounts how his Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who resented his absences and drinking.

The book's name comes from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a bread-maker and man's man, a plain speaker who detested the religious hypocrites in their community and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented the way they had to go begging to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and could get young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, for a while. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. But one day in a literature class he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He convincingly states that poems, alone, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time financial aid was available to go to Rada – a path to success for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, that he favored over theater. He stopped drinking in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it into his later years to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

During the second part of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He remembers being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Truly?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains it's your duty to be on time, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Indeed. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologize to that girl! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” He appears to be a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A straightforward and sincere nature – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply