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Many consider it the greatest entrance in movie lore – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, navigates a row of prison cells until she reaches the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. There he stands, his face resembling a living skull exuding demonic evil, chillingly static wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move until the moment he lunges toward the window, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since revealed that real-life murderers are often very boring, lacking anything like Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, but a legend emerged. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his strictly demanding Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a sore point for Hopkins, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union in 1966 to his first wife, who disliked his time away and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a baker and a tough individual, a direct communicator who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and didn't believe in displaying emotion, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who furiously resented how they were forced cap-in-hand to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony 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, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. But one day in an English lesson he was required to perform John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, launched him. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Notably, he graduated with low prospects, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then financial aid was available to attend Rada – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but fortunately found an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, that he favored compared to stage acting. He gave up alcohol in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live into his later years to execute great performances, like Hannibal 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 next Oscar win.

During the second part of the memoir his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He remembers having lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting due to resentment. Truly?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who thinks it is one's responsibility to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Indeed. However, he also describes facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with a detailed supplement composed simply