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Widely regarded as the most iconic appearance in cinematic history – and he remains without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, proceeds down a row of prison cells until she reaches the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. He is positioned, his face resembling a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He remains motionless until the moment he throws himself toward the window, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless true-crime documentaries have since shown that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like the actor's commanding screen presence.

He was not an unknown at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller in 1989: he was already established, instead, a superstar was cemented. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his rigorously precise Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a sore point for Hopkins, who also describes how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter 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 old wartime photo of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a plain speaker who despised the religious hypocrites in their community and refused to showing his emotions, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented the way they had to go humbly to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts during the car ride. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. However, one day during an English class he had to recite John Masefield's poem The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, launched him. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, went into acting, and shocking his family, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then there were grants to go to Rada – a way up for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but lucked into an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, which he preferred over theater. And he quit booze during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live into middle age to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He remembers being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Really?

He consistently acts as the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Quite so. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply