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Widely regarded as the most memorable appearance in film history – and he remains utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, navigates the line of detention units finally encountering the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. He is positioned, appearing as a living skull filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless before suddenly he lunges against the glass, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. A multitude of real-crime films have since demonstrated that real-life murderers are often very boring, lacking anything like Hopkins' captivating film persona.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller in 1989: he was already established, instead, a superstar was cemented. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, and also from his icily exacting Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a difficult topic for Hopkins, who also describes how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his failed first union during the 60s to his first wife, who was angered by his time away and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a bread-maker and man's man, a plain speaker who detested the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and refused to showing his emotions, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who was angered by the way they had to go begging to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and could get the young Anthony into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. However, one day in a literature class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, started his career. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage with the great Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days scholarships existed to go to Rada – a path to success for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but lucked into an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, which he liked more over theater. And he quit booze in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and so survived into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of the book he appears more reserved, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He mentions going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who thinks it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and proceed with the work. Indeed. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. A Shakespearean like him must know Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply