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Many consider it the most iconic appearance in film history – and he remains completely still.

The FBI trainee, new to the job, navigates a row of prison cells finally encountering the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. There he stands, appearing as a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless before suddenly he lunges at the barrier, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since shown that real-life murderers are often very boring, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar was cemented. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, the actor happily remembers in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader as recalled by his daughter, as well as his rigorously precise drama teacher Christopher Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a painful subject for Hopkins, who also describes how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union during the 60s with Petronella Barker, who was angered by him being away and drinking.

The book's name comes from an historical picture of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a plain speaker who detested the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and didn't believe in showing his emotions, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who was angered by how they were forced humbly to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. But one day in an English lesson he had to recite the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He convincingly states that verse, by itself, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was performing with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time scholarships existed for drama school – an opportunity for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but lucked into a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, that he favored to the stage. He gave up alcohol in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and managed to live into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He remembers having lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. He tends to concur with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who thinks it's your duty to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Quite so. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” He appears to be someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply