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It stands as the most memorable appearance in movie lore – while he stands without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, must walk the line of detention units until she reaches the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. The man is present, appearing as an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, chillingly static clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move until the moment he throws himself against the glass, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since shown that real-life murderers are often very boring, lacking anything like Hopkins' captivating film persona.

He was not unrecognized when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film back in 1989: a star wasn't born, but a legend was forged. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his icily exacting drama teacher Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a difficult topic for the actor, who further explains how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who disliked his absences and drinking.

The title originates from an historical picture of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a pastry chef and man's man, a plain speaker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and avoided displaying emotion, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who was angered by the necessity of going humbly to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. But one day during an English class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and the other boys. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days scholarships existed to attend Rada – a way up for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and began crying.

Regarding the fiery, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, that he favored over theater. He stopped drinking back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and so survived through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Certain stories aren't entirely successful. He remembers going out for lunch with his fellow actor in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Really?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who maintains you must to be on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Indeed. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologize to that girl! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that came with it. An actor of his caliber is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply