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Widely regarded as the most iconic appearance in movie lore – while he stands without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, new to the job, navigates a corridor of cells arriving at Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, his face resembling a living skull exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move right up until he lunges at the barrier, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since revealed that genuine criminals are often very boring, lacking anything like Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar emerged. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, the actor happily remembers in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and also from his icily exacting drama teacher Christopher Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a sore point for Hopkins, who also describes how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who resented him being away and his drinking habits.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a direct communicator who loathed the religious hypocrites in their community and refused to expressing his feelings, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked how they were forced begging to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. Then, during in an English lesson he was required to perform the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, started his career. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, pursued acting, and shocking his family, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then there were grants for drama school – an opportunity for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but lucked into a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, that he favored to the stage. He stopped drinking in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live through midlife to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in The Father – his second Academy Award.

During the second part of the memoir his character seems more elusive, more studied. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He remembers having lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Really?

He consistently acts as the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who thinks you must to be on time, know all the crew's names and do the job. Quite so. However, he also describes confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. You ever do that again in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A straightforward and sincere nature – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply