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It stands as the greatest introduction in movie lore – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, navigates the line of detention units finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, with features like a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless right up until he throws himself at the barrier, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless true-crime documentaries have since shown that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling the actor's captivating film persona.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film in 1989: a star wasn't born, but a legend was forged. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, and on his own icily exacting drama teacher his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a sore point for Anthony, who also describes how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and drinking.

The book's name comes from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy hailing from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and avoided showing his emotions, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented the necessity of going humbly to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and could get young Anthony into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims during the car ride. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The humility worked, for a time. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. But one day during an English class he was required to perform John Masefield's poem The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater within 10 years. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then financial aid was available to go to Rada – an opportunity for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but lucked into a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, which he liked more to the stage. He stopped drinking in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it through midlife to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He remembers being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Truly?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it is one's responsibility to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Indeed. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that came with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall 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 detailed supplement composed simply