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It stands as the most memorable entrance in film history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, navigates the line of detention units finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, with features like an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still in his form-fitting prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move before suddenly he propels himself at the barrier, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since shown that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, far from Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: he was already established, instead, a superstar was forged. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own rigorously precise drama teacher his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a sore point for Hopkins, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret about Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 to his first wife, who disliked his time away and his drinking habits.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the kid who maybe thought he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who loathed the religious hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in displaying emotion, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented the necessity of going begging to their rich relatives such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The humility worked, for a time. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. But one day during an English class he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other boys. He convincingly states that verse, by itself, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time financial aid was available to attend Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but lucked into a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, 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. And he quit booze during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live into middle age 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 Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of the book he appears more reserved, more calculated. A few tales fall a bit flat. He mentions having lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not really. Hopkins seems to go along with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven by jealousy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes it's your duty to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and proceed with the work. Quite so. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply