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It stands as the most iconic introduction in cinematic history – while he stands utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, navigates the line of detention units arriving at Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, with features like an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move until the moment he lunges toward the window, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since shown that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, far from Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film in 1989: a star wasn't born, but a legend emerged. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, the actor happily remembers in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin according to his daughter's memories, as well as his strictly demanding Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a painful subject for the actor, who recounts how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who resented his absences and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a baker and man's man, a direct communicator who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and avoided displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who was angered by how they were forced cap-in-hand to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. Then, during in a literature class he was required to perform John Masefield's poem The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He reasonably claims that poetry, on its own, started his career. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated without much hope, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic within 10 years. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days there were grants to go to Rada – an opportunity for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but stumbled upon an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in cinema, which he liked more compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and managed to live into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of the memoir he appears more reserved, more studied. Certain stories aren't entirely successful. He remembers being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven by jealousy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Absolutely. But he also recounts facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply