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Widely regarded as the greatest introduction in film history – while he stands completely still.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, must walk a row of prison cells until she reaches the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. He is positioned, his face resembling a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move before suddenly he propels himself at the barrier, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless real-crime films have since demonstrated that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, far from Hopkins' powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar was forged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his strictly demanding acting coach his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a sore point for Anthony, who further explains how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his absences and his drinking habits.

The title originates from an historical picture of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in this story: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a direct communicator who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in showing his emotions, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who was angered by the necessity of going cap-in-hand to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims 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. He was a poor student at his new school. However, one day during an English class he had to recite the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He reasonably claims that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time there were grants for drama school – an opportunity for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but fortunately found an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, that he favored to the stage. And he quit booze during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into his later years to execute great performances, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He mentions being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Really?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it's your duty to be on time, remember every crew member's name and proceed with the work. Absolutely. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And develop some respect. You ever do that again in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. A Shakespearean like him must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a detailed supplement composed simply