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Many consider it the most memorable appearance in movie lore – while he stands without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, navigates a corridor of cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, appearing as a living skull filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move until the moment he lunges at the barrier, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless real-crime films have since shown that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, far from the actor's captivating film persona.

He was not a newcomer when he landed that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was forged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own icily exacting drama teacher his instructor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a painful subject for Hopkins, who recounts how his King Lear was indirectly affected by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage back in 1966 to his first wife, who was angered by him being away and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and avoided expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who furiously resented the necessity of going cap-in-hand to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he shouts during the car ride. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a while. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. Then, during in an English lesson he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other boys. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, launched him. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time there were grants to attend Rada – an opportunity for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but stumbled upon an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to roles such as in the film The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in cinema, that he favored to the stage. And he quit booze in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more deliberate. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He remembers going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Truly?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes you must to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Indeed. However, he also describes confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply