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It stands as the greatest appearance in film history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, proceeds down a corridor of cells finally encountering Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, his face resembling a living skull exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He remains motionless until the moment he propels himself against the glass, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous real-crime films have since demonstrated that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not a newcomer when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: he was already established, instead, a superstar was cemented. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and also from his rigorously precise acting coach his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a painful subject for the actor, who also describes how his Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union during the 60s with Petronella Barker, who was angered by him being away and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a plain speaker who detested the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and didn't believe in showing his emotions, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked how they were forced begging to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts while traveling 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 at his new school. But one day during an English class he had to recite the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated without much hope, went into acting, and shocking his family, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater within 10 years. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time scholarships existed to go to Rada – a way up for working-class actors. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, which he liked more compared to stage acting. He gave up alcohol back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He recalls having lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Is that so?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who thinks you must to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Indeed. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And learn some manners. Should you ever act that way near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that came with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply