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It stands as the most memorable entrance in film history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, navigates the line of detention units until she reaches the notorious doctor's transparent prison. There he stands, his face resembling a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move before suddenly he propels himself toward the window, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless true-crime documentaries have since shown that actual serial killers are often very boring, far from the actor's captivating film persona.

He wasn't exactly an unknown upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: he was already established, but a legend emerged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, and also from his strictly demanding acting coach his mentor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a painful subject for the actor, who also describes how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time away and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the kid who maybe thought 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 bread-maker and man's man, a direct communicator who despised the religious hypocrites of the chapel and avoided displaying emotion, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented the necessity of going cap-in-hand to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. But one day during an English class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and the other students. He convincingly states that poems, alone, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time there were grants to attend Rada – a path to success for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but stumbled upon an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, that he favored over theater. And he quit booze in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of the memoir he appears more reserved, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He recalls having lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for him to absorb something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting due to resentment. Is that so?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes it's your duty to get there on time, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Absolutely. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. Should you ever act that way in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply