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Widely regarded as the most memorable appearance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, proceeds down a row of prison cells until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, with features like a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, chillingly static wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He stands frozen until the moment he lunges at the barrier, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless real-crime films have since demonstrated that actual serial killers are often very boring, lacking anything like Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar emerged. The character of Hannibal was based, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his icily exacting drama teacher Christopher Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a sore point for the actor, who further explains how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt about Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who was angered by his absences and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who detested the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and avoided expressing his feelings, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked how they were forced cap-in-hand to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. Then, during during an English class he had to recite the verse by John Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, started his career. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated without much hope, entered the acting world, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time financial aid was available to go to Rada – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and began crying.

Regarding the fiery, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but lucked into a memorable TV character playing an alleged war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which eventually resulted to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, which he preferred to the stage. And he quit booze during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live into middle age to execute great performances, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of the memoir his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. A few tales fall a bit flat. He recalls being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Really?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes it's your duty to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Quite so. However, he also describes confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply