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It stands as the most iconic introduction in film history – and he remains utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, navigates the line of detention units arriving at the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, appearing as a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless before suddenly he propels himself against the glass, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that real-life murderers are often very boring, lacking anything like Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film in 1989: he was already established, instead, a superstar emerged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his rigorously precise drama teacher his mentor Fettes. There was also a paternal-filial aspect to these scenes; a difficult topic for the actor, who also describes how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his failed first union back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who disliked him being away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. 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 bread-maker and a traditional male, a plain speaker who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and refused to showing his emotions, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked the way they had to go cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. However, one day in a literature class he had to recite John Masefield's poem The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He convincingly states that poems, alone, propelled him forward. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Surprisingly, he exited school a no-hoper, went into acting, and shocking his family, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then there were grants for drama school – a way up for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and began crying.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but fortunately found an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in cinema, which he liked more over theater. He gave up alcohol in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live through midlife to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of the memoir he appears more reserved, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He mentions having lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting due to resentment. Is that so?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who thinks it is one's responsibility to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Absolutely. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent in King Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply