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Widely regarded as the most iconic entrance in cinematic history – while he stands without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, new to the job, navigates the line of detention units arriving at the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, with features like a living skull radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless right up until he lunges toward the window, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like the actor's captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly a newcomer when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: he was already established, instead, a superstar was cemented. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his strictly demanding acting coach Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a painful subject for the actor, who also describes how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who disliked his absences and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a direct communicator who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and refused to showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who deeply disliked the necessity of going begging to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. But one day in an English lesson he was required to perform the poem by Masefield The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater within 10 years. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then there were grants to attend Rada – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but stumbled upon an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which eventually resulted to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he preferred to the stage. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and so survived into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He mentions having lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Really?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who believes it's your duty to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Absolutely. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” He appears to be a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply