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It stands as the most memorable entrance in movie lore – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, must walk a row of prison cells arriving at Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, with features like a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, chillingly static clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen before suddenly he throws himself at the barrier, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since revealed that real-life murderers are often very boring, far from Hopkins' captivating film persona.

He was not an unknown at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller in 1989: he was already established, but a legend emerged. 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 on his own icily exacting Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a sore point for the actor, who recounts how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time away and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes 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 felt confused, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a direct communicator who detested the religious hypocrites of the chapel and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who furiously resented how they were forced begging to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. However, one day during an English class he was required to perform John Masefield's poem The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and the other boys. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, started his career. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then scholarships existed to attend Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe by his son's international fame: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but fortunately found a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he liked more over theater. He gave up alcohol during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of the memoir he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He remembers going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for him to absorb something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it's your duty to get there on time, know all the crew's names and do the job. Quite so. However, he also describes facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. A Shakespearean like him must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply