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It stands as the most iconic entrance in movie lore – while he stands without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, must walk the line of detention units until she reaches Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. He is positioned, appearing as a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, chillingly static wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless before suddenly he propels himself toward the window, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that genuine criminals are often very boring, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He wasn't exactly an unknown upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller during the late 80s: he was already established, instead, a superstar was cemented. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, and on his own icily exacting drama teacher his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a painful subject for Anthony, who also describes how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who disliked his absences and his drinking habits.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he would never do OK. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a direct communicator who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and didn't believe in displaying emotion, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented the necessity of going cap-in-hand to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. Then, during in a literature class he was required to perform John Masefield's poem titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, started his career. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, went into acting, and shocking his family, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time scholarships existed for drama school – a path to success for working-class actors. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but lucked into a memorable TV character playing an alleged war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which paved the way to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, which he liked more to the stage. He gave up alcohol during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of the memoir he appears more reserved, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He remembers being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Is that so?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, 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. You ever do that again in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that came with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply