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

A young FBI agent, just starting out, must walk a row of prison cells finally encountering the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. He is positioned, his face resembling a living skull radiating satanic malice, chillingly static wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen right up until he propels himself at the barrier, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous real-crime films have since revealed that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly a newcomer when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film back in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar was forged. The character of Hannibal drew influence, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own rigorously precise drama teacher his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a difficult topic for Hopkins, who further explains how his Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his failed first union during the 60s to his first wife, who was angered by him being away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the kid who maybe thought he would never do OK. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and refused to expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented how they were forced cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and could get the young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a while. He was a poor student in his new institution. Then, during in a literature class he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days there were grants for drama school – a way up for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but lucked into a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he liked more compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into his later years to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of the memoir he appears more reserved, more studied. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He recalls being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who believes you must to be on time, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Absolutely. However, he also describes confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” He appears to be someone who gave up drink but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply