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Many consider it the most memorable appearance in cinematic history – while he stands utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, navigates a corridor of cells until she reaches the notorious doctor's transparent prison. He is positioned, appearing as a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen before suddenly he propels himself at the barrier, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous real-crime films have since demonstrated that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, far from the actor's captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar was cemented. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and also from his icily exacting acting coach Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a painful subject for the actor, who further explains how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who was angered by his absences and his alcohol use.

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 couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a bread-maker and man's man, a plain speaker who despised the Bible-punching 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 affluent family members including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he shouts while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. Then, during in a literature class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, went into acting, and shocking his family, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, although in those days there were grants to go to Rada – an opportunity for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, strong-willed son, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but fortunately found a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which eventually resulted to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, that he favored compared to stage acting. He gave up alcohol back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live into middle age to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of the book he appears more reserved, more deliberate. A few tales fall a bit flat. He mentions being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting due to resentment. Truly?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains you must to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Absolutely. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologize to that girl! 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 yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply