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Widely regarded as the most iconic introduction in movie lore – while he stands utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, navigates the line of detention units finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, with features like a living skull filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless right up until he lunges at the barrier, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like the actor's captivating film persona.

He was not a newcomer upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar was cemented. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own strictly demanding acting coach his mentor Fettes. There was also a paternal-filial aspect to these scenes; a sore point for Anthony, who further explains how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from a vintage war-era photograph of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a baker and man's man, a direct communicator who detested the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and refused to displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented the necessity of going cap-in-hand to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he exclaims while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. However, one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated without much hope, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was on stage with 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 path to success for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and burst into tears.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, which he liked more compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived 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.

In the latter half of the memoir he appears more reserved, more studied. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He remembers being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Truly?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it's your duty to get there on time, know all the crew's names and proceed with the work. Indeed. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! And develop some respect. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply