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Many consider it the greatest introduction in cinematic history – while he stands completely still.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, proceeds down a corridor of cells arriving at the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, his face resembling an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile in his form-fitting prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move right up until he propels himself at the barrier, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless real-crime films have since shown that actual serial killers are often very boring, with nothing resembling Hopkins' captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized when he landed that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar was cemented. The character of Hannibal was based, the actor happily remembers in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his icily exacting drama teacher his instructor Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a painful subject for Hopkins, who further explains how his King Lear was indirectly affected by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to his first wife, who resented him being away and his drinking habits.

The title originates from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a baker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and refused to showing his emotions, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked how they were forced humbly to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and could get young Anthony into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” 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. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. But one day in a literature class he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing with the great Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then there were grants to attend Rada – a way up for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, which he preferred to the stage. He gave up alcohol during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of the memoir his character seems more elusive, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He mentions being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Sorvino, who sought to advise him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. He tends to concur with the director's criticism that Sorvino was acting due to resentment. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who believes it's your duty to get there on time, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Quite so. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply