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Widely regarded as the most memorable introduction in movie lore – while he stands utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, navigates a corridor of cells arriving at Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, appearing as an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, chillingly static clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen until the moment he lunges toward the window, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that actual serial killers are often very boring, with nothing resembling the actor's captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller in 1989: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar was forged. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his strictly demanding Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a sore point for the actor, who also describes how his Lear was indirectly affected by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time away and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and refused to showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the way they had to go begging to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. He was a poor student at his new school. However, one day during an English class he was required to perform John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, launched him. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then there were grants to attend Rada – an opportunity for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but stumbled upon an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, that he favored compared to stage acting. And he quit booze back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live into his later years to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the latter half of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He remembers being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Not really. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven by jealousy. Really?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains you must to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Absolutely. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply