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Many consider it the most memorable introduction in film history – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, proceeds down the line of detention units finally encountering Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, with features like an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move before suddenly he throws himself at the barrier, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous real-crime films have since demonstrated that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar was forged. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, and also from his icily exacting acting coach his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a painful subject for Hopkins, who recounts how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage in 1966 to his first wife, who was angered by his time away and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who detested the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and refused to displaying emotion, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who furiously resented the necessity of going begging to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, for a while. He was a poor student at his new school. However, one day during an English class he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He convincingly states that poems, alone, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated without much hope, went into acting, and shocking his family, was on stage with Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic within 10 years. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then there were grants to attend Rada – a way up for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but fortunately found a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to roles such as in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, which he liked more over theater. And he quit booze during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of the book his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. A few tales fall a bit flat. He recalls being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. Hopkins seems to go along with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Is that so?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains it's your duty to get there on time, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Quite so. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply