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Many consider it the most memorable appearance in movie lore – while he stands completely still.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, proceeds down a corridor of cells arriving at the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, with features like a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move right up until he lunges against the glass, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous real-crime films have since revealed that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not unrecognized when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, 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 icily exacting Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a painful subject for Hopkins, who also describes how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who disliked his time away and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from an historical picture of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a baker and man's man, a straightforward talker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented how they were forced begging to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and could get young Anthony into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. Then, during in an English lesson he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated without much hope, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days scholarships existed for drama school – a path to success for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but fortunately found a memorable TV character playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, which he liked more to the stage. He stopped drinking back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and managed to live into middle age to execute great performances, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of the memoir he appears more reserved, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He remembers being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it is one's responsibility to be on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Quite so. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! And develop some respect. You ever do that again in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. An actor of his caliber is aware of Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply