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Widely regarded as the most memorable entrance in movie lore – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, navigates the line of detention units until she reaches Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. There he stands, with features like an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move before suddenly he lunges against the glass, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since revealed that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like the actor's captivating film persona.

He was not unrecognized at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller in 1989: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar emerged. His portrayal of Lecter drew influence, the actor happily remembers in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and on his own rigorously precise acting coach his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a painful subject for Anthony, who further explains how his Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who disliked his time away and his alcohol use.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a direct communicator who detested the religious hypocrites of the chapel and didn't believe in showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who was angered by the necessity of going cap-in-hand to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts during the car ride. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. Then, during in a literature class he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He reasonably claims that verse, by itself, started his career. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with the great Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time financial aid was available for drama school – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but fortunately found an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in cinema, that he favored to the stage. He stopped drinking in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of the memoir he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He recalls being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains it is one's responsibility to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Absolutely. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Say sorry to her! And learn some manners. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that came with it. A Shakespearean like him must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply