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Widely regarded as the greatest entrance in film history – and he remains completely still.

The FBI trainee, new to the job, proceeds down a row of prison cells arriving at the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. The man is present, with features like an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless right up until he propels himself against the glass, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless real-crime films have since shown that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, far from the actor's commanding screen presence.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar was forged. The character of Hannibal drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his icily exacting drama teacher his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect to these scenes; a painful subject for Hopkins, who recounts how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage in 1966 to his first wife, who was angered by his absences and his drinking habits.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a baker and man's man, a direct communicator who detested the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and avoided showing his emotions, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented the way they had to go cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” 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 while. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. However, one day during an English class he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He reasonably claims that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then there were grants to go to Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – 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 David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he liked more to the stage. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his second Academy Award.

During the second part of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. A few tales fall a bit flat. He recalls being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Truly?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who maintains you must to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Indeed. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And learn some manners. Should you ever act that way near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply