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It stands as the most memorable appearance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays completely still.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, proceeds down a corridor of cells finally encountering the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. The man is present, with features like a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, chillingly static wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move until the moment he throws himself against the glass, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly a newcomer at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar emerged. His portrayal of Lecter drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his strictly demanding acting coach Christopher Fettes. There was also a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a sore point for the actor, who also describes how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented his absences and his drinking habits.

The book's name comes from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a direct communicator who detested the religious hypocrites at the church and avoided expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked how they were forced humbly to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts during the car ride. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. He was a poor student at his new school. But one day in a literature class he was required to perform John Masefield's poem titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Notably, he graduated with low prospects, went into acting, and shocking his family, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time financial aid was available to attend Rada – a way up for working-class actors. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but fortunately found a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, which he preferred compared to stage acting. And he quit booze in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He recalls going out for lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Really?

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 get on with it. Quite so. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And learn some manners. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply