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Widely regarded as the most iconic appearance in movie lore – and he remains utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, a rookie, proceeds down the line of detention units arriving at Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, appearing as a living skull radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He remains motionless right up until he lunges toward the window, emitting that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since shown that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, far from the actor's captivating film persona.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was forged. His portrayal of Lecter drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his rigorously precise drama teacher Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a painful subject for Hopkins, who further explains how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who was angered by his absences and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who detested the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and refused to showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who furiously resented how they were forced cap-in-hand to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and could get young Anthony into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts during the car ride. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. Then, during in an English lesson he was required to perform the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his talent emerged; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time scholarships existed to attend Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but stumbled upon an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he liked more compared to stage acting. And he quit booze during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and so survived into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the latter half of the book his character seems more elusive, more studied. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He recalls going out for lunch by his co-star in the film Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting 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 rejection of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Truly?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains you must to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Quite so. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A straightforward and sincere nature – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply