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Many consider it the greatest entrance in movie lore – and he remains without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, proceeds down a row of prison cells arriving at Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, his face resembling a living skull exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile in his form-fitting prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move right up until he propels himself toward the window, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of real-crime films have since revealed that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, far from the actor's captivating film persona.

He wasn't exactly an unknown at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was forged. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own icily exacting acting coach his instructor Fettes. There was also a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a painful subject for the actor, who also describes how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who disliked his time away and his alcohol use.

The title originates from an historical picture of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and refused to displaying emotion, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who was angered by the necessity of going humbly to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and was able to secure 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! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. However, one day during an English class he had to recite the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other boys. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned 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 performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which eventually resulted to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, which he preferred over theater. And he quit booze in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and so survived through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of the book his character seems more elusive, more studied. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He remembers going out for lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Truly?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains 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 confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And develop some respect. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. An actor of his caliber is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply