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

Clarice Starling, new to the job, navigates a corridor of cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, appearing as an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen until the moment he throws himself toward the window, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since shown that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly an unknown at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but a legend was cemented. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his strictly demanding acting coach his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a painful subject for Hopkins, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage back in 1966 to his first wife, who resented his absences and his alcohol use.

The title originates from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a plain speaker who loathed the religious hypocrites at the church and avoided showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who deeply disliked the necessity of going begging to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves 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 time. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. Then, during during an English class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days scholarships existed for drama school – an opportunity for working-class actors. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but lucked into a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, that he favored compared to stage acting. And he quit booze back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of the book his character seems more elusive, more studied. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He recalls being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who sought to advise 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 really. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Really?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who thinks you must to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Indeed. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. Should you ever act that way near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A straightforward and sincere nature – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply