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Widely regarded as the most memorable entrance in movie lore – and he remains utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, must walk a corridor of cells arriving at Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, with features like a living skull radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen before suddenly he lunges toward the window, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, far from Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer when he landed that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: a star wasn't born, but a legend emerged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and also from his rigorously precise acting coach Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a difficult topic for Anthony, who recounts how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage back in 1966 to his first wife, who was angered by him being away and his drinking habits.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he would never do OK. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a pastry chef and man's man, a straightforward talker who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and didn't believe in showing his emotions, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who was angered by the necessity of going humbly to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. However, one day during an English class he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated without much hope, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days there were grants for drama school – a path to success for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to recite the Yorick speech from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but lucked into an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which eventually resulted to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, that he favored compared to stage acting. He gave up alcohol in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and thus made it into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of the book he appears more reserved, more calculated. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He mentions going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Really?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who thinks you must to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and proceed with the work. Quite so. However, he also describes facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that came with it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply