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Many consider it the most memorable entrance in cinematic history – and he remains utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, new to the job, navigates a row of prison cells until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, with features like a living skull exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move until the moment he throws himself at the barrier, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since revealed that actual serial killers are often very boring, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not an unknown when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film in 1989: a star wasn't born, but a legend emerged. The character of Hannibal drew influence, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, as well as his icily exacting acting coach his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a painful subject for Hopkins, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his initial marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who resented him being away and his drinking habits.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a baker and man's man, a plain speaker who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and refused to expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who deeply disliked how they were forced begging to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a while. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. Then, during during an English class he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, started his career. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with the great Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then financial aid was available for drama school – a way up for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but lucked into a memorable TV character playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he preferred to the stage. And he quit booze during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and so survived through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He recalls going out for lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Really?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who maintains you must to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Absolutely. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply