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It stands as the most memorable entrance in film history – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, navigates a row of prison cells finally encountering Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. There he stands, with features like a living skull exuding demonic evil, chillingly static wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move until the moment he lunges against the glass, emitting that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. A multitude of real-crime films have since shown that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like the actor's commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was forged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own rigorously precise acting coach Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a difficult topic for Anthony, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union in 1966 to his first wife, who resented his time away and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a baker and man's man, a straightforward talker who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and refused to showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the way they had to go cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. He was a poor student in his new institution. However, one day in an English lesson he had to recite the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time there were grants to go to Rada – a way up for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, which he preferred compared to stage acting. And he quit booze in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and so survived through midlife to execute great performances, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He remembers having lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes it's your duty to be on time, remember every crew member's name and proceed with the work. Quite so. However, he also describes facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply