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Many consider it the most memorable appearance in film history – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, a rookie, navigates a row of prison cells finally encountering Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, appearing as a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move before suddenly he throws himself against the glass, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless true-crime documentaries have since shown that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like Hopkins' commanding screen presence.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: a star wasn't born, but a legend was cemented. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, as well as his rigorously precise Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a difficult topic for the actor, who recounts how his King Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to his first wife, who was angered by him being away and his alcohol use.

The title originates from an historical picture of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a baker and a tough individual, a plain speaker who despised the religious hypocrites in their community and avoided showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who was angered by the necessity of going cap-in-hand to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. However, one day in an English lesson he had to recite John Masefield's poem titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage with Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic within 10 years. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then there were grants to go to Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and burst into tears.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but fortunately found a great TV role as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, that he favored to the stage. And he quit booze back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more deliberate. A few tales fall a bit flat. He mentions having lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Not really. Hopkins seems to go along with the director's criticism that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it's your duty to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and proceed with the work. Quite so. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” He appears to be someone who gave up drink but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent in King Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply