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It stands as the most memorable appearance in film history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, navigates the line of detention units arriving at Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. He is positioned, with features like a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move right up until he throws himself against the glass, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly a newcomer at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar was forged. His Dr. Lecter was based, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin according to his daughter's memories, as well as his rigorously precise acting coach his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a painful subject for Hopkins, who also describes how his Lear was indirectly affected by deep-seated remorse regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his failed first union in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who was angered by him being away and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the kid who maybe thought 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 this story: a baker and man's man, a straightforward talker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and refused to displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked the necessity of going begging to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. Then, during in a literature class he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then financial aid was available for drama school – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but lucked into a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, that he favored compared to stage acting. And he quit booze during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He recalls having lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains it's your duty to be on time, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Quite so. But he also recounts facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink but maybe not the belligerence that came with it. An actor of his caliber is aware of Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply