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Many consider it the most memorable appearance in cinematic history – while he stands utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, navigates a row of prison cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. There he stands, appearing as an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, chillingly static in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move right up until he throws himself toward the window, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless true-crime documentaries have since revealed that actual serial killers are often very boring, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly a newcomer upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller during the late 80s: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar emerged. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, as well as his rigorously precise drama teacher Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a difficult topic for Anthony, who recounts how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to his first wife, who disliked his time away and his drinking habits.

The title originates from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and refused to showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the way they had to go cap-in-hand to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. However, one day in a literature class he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, started his career. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, 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 path to success for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: 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.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but stumbled upon an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, that he favored over theater. And he quit booze in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and so survived into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. Certain stories aren't entirely successful. He mentions having lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Truly?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains you must to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Quite so. But he also recounts facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that 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. An actor of his caliber is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply