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Widely regarded as the greatest appearance in movie lore – and he remains utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, navigates the line of detention units finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. He is positioned, with features like a living skull exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen until the moment he throws himself toward the window, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since shown that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, far from the actor's commanding screen presence.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar was forged. The character of Hannibal was based, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and on his own strictly demanding drama teacher Christopher Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a difficult topic for the actor, who further explains how his King Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who was angered by his time away and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a direct communicator who detested the religious hypocrites in their community and didn't believe in displaying emotion, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked how they were forced begging to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he shouts during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. Then, during in a literature class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, pursued acting, and shocking his family, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days scholarships existed to attend Rada – an opportunity for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and began crying.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, that he favored compared to stage acting. He gave up alcohol back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of the book he appears more reserved, more calculated. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He remembers being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Not really. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Really?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Absolutely. But he also recounts facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And learn some manners. 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 accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply