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Widely regarded as the most memorable appearance in movie lore – and he remains without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, proceeds down a corridor of cells finally encountering the notorious doctor's transparent prison. There he stands, his face resembling an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless before suddenly he throws himself toward the window, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: he was already established, but a legend was forged. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and also from his icily exacting acting coach his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a difficult topic for Anthony, who recounts how his King Lear was indirectly affected by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented his time away and his alcohol use.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who detested the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and refused to showing his emotions, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented how they were forced begging to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he shouts while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. However, one day in an English lesson he was required to perform the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, started his career. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time scholarships existed for drama school – a path to success for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but fortunately found a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in cinema, which he liked more over theater. And he quit booze during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

During the second part of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He mentions being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Truly?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who thinks you must to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Indeed. However, he also describes confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And learn some manners. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply