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It stands as the most memorable introduction in movie lore – yet the actor stays completely still.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, proceeds down a corridor of cells until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. There he stands, appearing as an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move right up until he propels himself at the barrier, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of real-crime films have since revealed that actual serial killers are often very boring, with nothing resembling the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller during the late 80s: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar was cemented. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and also from his rigorously precise acting coach Christopher Fettes. There was also a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a sore point for the actor, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union back 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 kid who maybe thought he would never do OK. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a baker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who despised the religious hypocrites in their community and didn't believe in showing his emotions, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who deeply disliked the necessity of going humbly to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, for a time. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. However, one day in a literature class he had to recite the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his talent emerged; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated without much hope, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then scholarships existed for drama school – an opportunity for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but stumbled upon an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, which he liked more over theater. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and thus made it through midlife to execute great performances, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He recalls having lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes it's your duty to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Quite so. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And learn some manners. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be someone who gave up drink yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply