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Many consider it the most memorable appearance in movie lore – while he stands completely still.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, navigates a row of prison cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, his face resembling an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen right up until he throws himself at the barrier, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since shown that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar emerged. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own rigorously precise acting coach his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a difficult topic for the actor, who recounts how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt about Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union in 1966 to his first wife, who resented his time away and his drinking habits.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He appeared lost, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and avoided expressing his feelings, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who was angered by the necessity of going begging 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! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. But one day during an English class he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage with the great 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 of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, which he liked more compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and managed to live into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He recalls going out for lunch with his fellow actor in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Indeed. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply