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

The FBI trainee, new to the job, must walk the line of detention units arriving at Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, appearing as a living skull radiating satanic malice, chillingly static clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move until the moment he throws himself against the glass, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He was not unrecognized when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: he was already established, instead, a superstar was cemented. The character of Hannibal drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his rigorously precise drama teacher Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect to these scenes; a difficult topic for Hopkins, who also describes how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who disliked his absences and his drinking habits.

The title originates from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a baker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and refused to expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented how they were forced humbly to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a while. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. Then, during in an English lesson he had to recite the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated with low prospects, pursued acting, and shocking his family, was on stage with the great Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days financial aid was available for drama school – an opportunity for working-class actors. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but fortunately found an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which paved the way to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, that he favored to the stage. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant 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 studied. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He mentions going out for lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Really?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it's your duty to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Indeed. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And learn some manners. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply