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

Clarice Starling, new to the job, proceeds down the line of detention units arriving at the notorious doctor's transparent prison. He is positioned, his face resembling a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He remains motionless before suddenly he propels himself against the glass, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's commanding screen presence.

He was not unrecognized at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film back in 1989: a star wasn't born, but a legend emerged. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own strictly demanding drama teacher Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a sore point for Hopkins, who recounts how his Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his absences and drinking.

The title originates from an historical picture of Hopkins as a toddler on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a baker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and didn't believe in showing his emotions, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented the necessity of going begging to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. But one day in a literature class he had to recite the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days financial aid was available to attend Rada – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but lucked into a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, which he preferred to the stage. And he quit booze back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and so survived into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with 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 studied. Certain stories aren't entirely successful. He mentions going out for lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with the director's criticism that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes you must to be on time, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Quite so. However, he also describes facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply