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Widely regarded as the most iconic appearance in film history – and he remains without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, must walk a corridor of cells arriving at Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, his face resembling a living skull exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless right up until he propels himself against the glass, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. A multitude of true-crime documentaries 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 that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: he was already established, but rather a megastar emerged. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and also from his icily exacting Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a sore point for Anthony, who further explains how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret about Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by him being away and drinking.

The book's name comes from an historical picture of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a baker and man's man, a straightforward talker who despised the religious hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in displaying emotion, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who was angered by the way they had to go begging to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and was able to secure young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. He was a poor student at his new school. Then, during in an English lesson he had to recite the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and the other boys. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, started his career. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated without much hope, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting with the great Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then there were grants for drama school – an opportunity for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but lucked into an excellent television part playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, that he favored to the stage. And he quit booze in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of the book he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He recalls having lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains it is one's responsibility to be on time, know all the crew's names and do the job. Absolutely. But he also recounts facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. 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 came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply