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Widely regarded as the most iconic introduction in movie lore – yet the actor stays completely still.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, proceeds down a row of prison cells arriving at the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, with features like a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen before suddenly he throws himself toward the window, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since revealed that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like Hopkins' captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but a legend was forged. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his rigorously precise drama teacher Christopher Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a difficult topic for Anthony, who further explains how his Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt about Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a baker and man's man, a plain speaker who detested the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and refused to showing his emotions, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who was angered by the necessity of going begging to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. He was a poor student in his new institution. But one day in a literature class he had to recite the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing with the great Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then scholarships existed to attend Rada – an opportunity for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, which he preferred compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into his later years to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He mentions being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Sorvino, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Hardly. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who thinks it is one's responsibility to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Quite so. However, he also describes confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. An actor of his caliber is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply