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Widely regarded as the most memorable entrance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, must walk a corridor of cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, with features like a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen before suddenly he throws himself against the glass, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, far from Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not a newcomer when he landed that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film back in 1989: a star wasn't born, but a legend emerged. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, as well as his rigorously precise Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a painful subject for Hopkins, who also describes how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who disliked him being away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a bread-maker and man's man, a straightforward talker who detested the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and avoided showing his emotions, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who deeply disliked how they were forced humbly to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims during the car ride. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. He was a poor student at his new school. But one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing with the great Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then there were grants for drama school – a path to success for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but fortunately found a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, which he preferred to the stage. He gave up alcohol in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and managed to live through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more calculated. Certain stories aren't entirely successful. He remembers having lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven by jealousy. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes it is one's responsibility to get there on time, know all the crew's names and do the job. Quite so. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. An actor of his caliber must know Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply