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Widely regarded as the most memorable entrance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays completely still.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, proceeds down a row of prison cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, appearing as an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move right up until he lunges toward the window, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since revealed that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar was forged. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his icily exacting Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a painful subject for the actor, who recounts how his Lear was indirectly affected by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time 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 child who might have felt he would never do OK. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child hailing from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a direct communicator who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and refused to showing his emotions, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who was angered by how they were forced cap-in-hand to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, for a time. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. However, one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He reasonably claims that verse, by itself, started his career. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated with low prospects, pursued acting, and shocking his family, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic within 10 years. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time financial aid was available to go to Rada – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but fortunately found a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, that he favored over theater. And he quit booze in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in The Father – his second Academy Award.

During the second part of the memoir his character seems more elusive, more studied. A few tales fall a bit flat. He mentions being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who believes it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Indeed. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And develop some respect. Should you ever act that way in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! 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 speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply