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Widely regarded as the most iconic introduction in movie lore – and he remains utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, must walk a row of prison cells until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, his face resembling a living skull radiating satanic malice, chillingly static in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless right up until he throws himself at the barrier, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. A multitude of real-crime films have since demonstrated that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar emerged. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his rigorously precise acting coach his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a painful subject for Hopkins, who also describes how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who resented his absences and his drinking habits.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a plain speaker who detested the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and avoided expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked how they were forced humbly to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and could get young Anthony into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves during the car ride. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, for a time. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. However, one day in a literature class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Notably, he graduated without much hope, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time scholarships existed to go to Rada – an opportunity for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but fortunately found a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in cinema, which he preferred over theater. He gave up alcohol in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and so survived into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the latter half of the memoir he appears more reserved, more studied. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He remembers being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the highly regarded performer Sorvino, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Truly?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who believes it is one's responsibility to be on time, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Absolutely. However, he also describes confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply