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It stands as the most iconic introduction in movie lore – while he stands completely still.

The FBI trainee, a rookie, proceeds down a corridor of cells finally encountering the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, appearing as an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, chillingly static in his form-fitting prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move until the moment 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 usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling Hopkins' captivating film persona.

He was not unrecognized upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar was cemented. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own strictly demanding Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a painful subject for Hopkins, who recounts how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time away and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and avoided displaying emotion, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who was angered by how they were forced cap-in-hand to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. But one day in a literature class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days scholarships existed to attend Rada – an opportunity for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, which he liked more to the stage. He stopped drinking back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He recalls going out for lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting due to resentment. Really?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who thinks it is one's responsibility to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Quite so. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And learn some manners. Should you ever act that way in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! He appears to be a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply