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Widely regarded as the most iconic entrance in movie lore – while he stands without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, navigates a corridor of cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, appearing as an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He remains motionless before suddenly he lunges against the glass, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless true-crime documentaries have since revealed that genuine criminals are often very boring, far from the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film back in 1989: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar was cemented. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his rigorously precise drama teacher Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect to these scenes; a painful subject for the actor, who further explains how his Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who disliked his time away and his drinking habits.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in this story: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who despised the religious hypocrites in their community and avoided displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the necessity of going cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. But one day in a literature class he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he amazed the instructor and the other boys. He reasonably claims that verse, by itself, started his career. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, pursued acting, and shocking his family, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time financial aid was available for drama school – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to recite the Yorick speech from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but lucked into an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, that he favored to the stage. He stopped drinking back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and so survived through midlife to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He remembers going out for lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for him to absorb something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who believes it's your duty to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Quite so. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And learn some manners. 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 came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply