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It stands as the most iconic entrance in film history – while he stands completely still.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, proceeds down the line of detention units arriving at Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, his face resembling an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless until the moment he lunges against the glass, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless real-crime films have since shown that actual serial killers are often very boring, far from the actor's captivating film persona.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, but a legend emerged. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader as recalled by his daughter, and on his own rigorously precise drama teacher his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a difficult topic for the actor, who also describes how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who disliked his time away and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child with his father at the seaside – 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 direct communicator who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and didn't believe in displaying emotion, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who was angered by the way they had to go humbly to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. Then, during in an English lesson he had to recite the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, went into acting, and shocking his family, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time scholarships existed for drama school – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. 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 burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but fortunately found a memorable TV character playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, which he preferred to the stage. And he quit booze in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and managed to live into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He mentions having lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the highly regarded performer Sorvino, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Is that so?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains it's your duty to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and do the job. Quite so. However, he also describes facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply