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It stands as the most memorable entrance in cinematic history – and he remains without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, proceeds down a row of prison cells finally encountering the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, appearing as an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, chillingly static wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He stands frozen right up until he propels himself against the glass, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that real-life murderers are often very boring, lacking anything like the actor's commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was cemented. The character of Hannibal drew influence, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his icily exacting drama teacher Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a sore point for Anthony, who also describes how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time away and his alcohol use.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and refused to showing his emotions, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the necessity of going begging to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a while. He was a poor student at his new school. However, one day in a literature class he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and the other boys. He reasonably claims that poetry, on its own, launched him. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was performing with the great Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then scholarships existed to go to Rada – a way up for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but lucked into an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, which he preferred to the stage. He gave up alcohol in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and so survived into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He mentions being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in the film Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Really?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains it's your duty to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Indeed. But he also recounts facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply