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It stands as the greatest introduction in movie lore – while he stands without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, proceeds down the line of detention units arriving at the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. There he stands, with features like a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless right up until he lunges toward the window, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous real-crime films have since shown that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: he was already established, instead, a superstar was cemented. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader as recalled by his daughter, as well as his icily exacting drama teacher Christopher Fettes. There was also a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a sore point for Hopkins, who further explains how his Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to his first wife, who disliked his time away and his alcohol use.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a baker and a tough individual, a direct communicator who loathed the religious hypocrites at the church and avoided displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented how they were forced begging to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. However, one day during an English class he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He reasonably claims that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days there were grants to go to Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and burst into tears.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but fortunately found an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he preferred compared to stage acting. And he quit booze back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and so survived into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He recalls going out for lunch by his co-star in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Really?

He consistently acts as the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains it's your duty to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Indeed. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply