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Widely regarded as the greatest entrance in movie lore – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, proceeds down a row of prison cells until she reaches the notorious doctor's transparent prison. The man is present, appearing as an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, chillingly static wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen right up until he lunges against the glass, emitting that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless real-crime films have since revealed that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, far from the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar was forged. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own strictly demanding drama teacher his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a difficult topic for Anthony, who further explains how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and his alcohol use.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a pastry chef and man's man, a direct communicator who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and avoided displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who was angered by how they were forced cap-in-hand to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. But one day in an English lesson he was required to perform John Masefield's poem titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, started his career. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing with the great Olivier at the Old Vic within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, although in those days there were grants to go to Rada – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, which he liked more to the stage. He gave up alcohol in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into middle age to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the servant 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. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He mentions being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting due to resentment. Really?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who maintains you must to get there on time, know all the crew's names and proceed with the work. Absolutely. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And develop some respect. Should you ever act that way in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply