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Many consider it the most memorable introduction in film history – and he remains utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, must walk a corridor of cells until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, with features like an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move until the moment he throws himself against the glass, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since revealed that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He was not unrecognized at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film in 1989: he was already established, but a legend emerged. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own icily exacting drama teacher Christopher Fettes. Additionally, there existed a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a painful subject for the actor, who also describes how his Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to his first wife, who resented him being away and his drinking habits.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a baker and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who loathed the religious hypocrites of the chapel and avoided expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who was angered by the way they had to go cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. Then, during in a literature class he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield known as 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, launched him. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting with the great Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then financial aid was available to attend Rada – a way up for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but lucked into a great TV role as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, that he favored to the stage. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He remembers having lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer from Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Really?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Quite so. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And learn some manners. Should you ever act that way in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. A Shakespearean like him must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply