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It stands as the greatest introduction in film history – while he stands utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, proceeds down a corridor of cells arriving at Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. The man is present, his face resembling an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless right up until he propels himself against the glass, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since shown that actual serial killers are often very boring, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's commanding screen presence.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but a legend was forged. His Dr. Lecter was based, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his strictly demanding Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a difficult topic for Hopkins, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret about Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to his first wife, who was angered by his absences and drinking.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a baker and a tough individual, a plain speaker who loathed the religious hypocrites in their community and refused to expressing his feelings, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who furiously resented the necessity of going begging to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and could get the young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The grovelling paid off, for a while. He was a poor student at his new school. However, one day during an English class he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and the other students. He convincingly states that poems, alone, propelled him forward. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Notably, he graduated with low prospects, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time scholarships existed to go to Rada – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but lucked into a great TV role as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, that he favored compared to stage acting. And he quit booze during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of the book his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. Certain stories aren't entirely successful. He recalls having lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Truly?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it's your duty to be on time, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Quite so. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that 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 classical performer like Hopkins must know Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A straightforward and sincere nature – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply