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It stands as the greatest entrance in film history – and he remains without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, proceeds down a row of prison cells finally encountering the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, his face resembling an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless until the moment he lunges at the barrier, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since revealed that actual serial killers are often very boring, lacking anything like the actor's captivating film persona.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film back in 1989: a star wasn't born, but a legend was forged. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin according to his daughter's memories, as well as his rigorously precise Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a difficult topic for Hopkins, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret about Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who resented his time away and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a bread-maker and man's man, a straightforward talker who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and avoided expressing his feelings, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented the way they had to go humbly to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. Then, during in an English lesson he had to recite the verse by John Masefield The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, started his career. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Surprisingly, he exited school a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage with Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then there were grants to attend Rada – a way up for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe by his son's international fame: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but lucked into a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, which he preferred to the stage. He gave up alcohol in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more calculated. A few tales fall a bit flat. He remembers having lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Really?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who believes you must to be on time, know all the crew's names and proceed with the work. Quite so. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know 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