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Many consider it the most iconic introduction in cinematic history – yet the actor stays completely still.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, must walk a row of prison cells until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. There he stands, appearing as a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, chillingly static clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move before suddenly he propels himself at the barrier, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous real-crime films have since revealed that real-life murderers are often very boring, with nothing resembling Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was forged. The character of Hannibal drew influence, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and also from his rigorously precise Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a sore point for Anthony, who further explains how his Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to his first wife, who resented his time away and his drinking habits.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a plain speaker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and refused to showing his emotions, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who was angered by the necessity of going begging to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. Then, during in a literature class he was required to perform John Masefield's poem The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and the other boys. He convincingly states that poems, alone, started his career. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was acting with the great Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time financial aid was available to go to Rada – a path to success for working-class actors. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, strong-willed son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but fortunately found a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which paved the way to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, that he favored to the stage. And he quit booze in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. A few tales fall a bit flat. He recalls being taken out to lunch by his co-star in the film Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven by jealousy. Really?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who thinks you must to be on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Quite so. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply