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It stands as the most memorable entrance in movie lore – while he stands without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, proceeds down a row of prison cells arriving at Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. There he stands, his face resembling a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless until the moment he lunges toward the window, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of real-crime films have since shown that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling the actor's commanding screen presence.

He was not a newcomer when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was cemented. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, and on his own rigorously precise acting coach his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a painful subject for Anthony, who further explains how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time away and drinking.

The book's name comes from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a plain speaker who detested the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and didn't believe in showing his emotions, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented how they were forced begging to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” 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 while. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. However, one day in a literature class he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He reasonably claims that verse, by itself, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time scholarships existed to attend Rada – a path to success for working-class actors. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but fortunately found a memorable TV character playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, that he favored over theater. He stopped drinking back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

During the second part of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He remembers being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and proceed with the work. Indeed. However, he also describes facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply