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Widely regarded as the most iconic entrance in movie lore – yet the actor stays completely still.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, navigates a row of prison cells arriving at Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, with features like a living skull filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still in his form-fitting prisoner's blue outfit. He remains motionless right up until he throws himself toward the window, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since shown that real-life murderers are often very boring, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He was not unrecognized when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: a star wasn't born, but a legend was cemented. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his rigorously precise acting coach his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a painful subject for Anthony, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his failed first union during the 60s to his first wife, who disliked his time away and his drinking habits.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a baker and man's man, a direct communicator who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and refused to showing his emotions, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the way they had to go begging to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts during the car ride. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. Then, during in an English lesson he was required to perform John Masefield's poem titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, went into acting, and shocking his family, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic within 10 years. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then financial aid was available to attend Rada – a way up for working-class actors. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but lucked into a memorable TV character playing an alleged war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, which he liked more over theater. He gave up alcohol back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the latter half of the memoir he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Certain stories aren't entirely successful. He recalls being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Really?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it's your duty to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and do the job. Absolutely. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of Cornwall's speech regarding Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply