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It stands as the most memorable entrance in film history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, proceeds down the line of detention units arriving at Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, his face resembling a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He stands frozen before suddenly he lunges at the barrier, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since shown that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: he was already established, but a legend was cemented. His Dr. Lecter was based, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader as recalled by his daughter, and on his own rigorously precise acting coach Christopher Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a difficult topic for Anthony, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to his first wife, who disliked his absences and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a baker and man's man, a plain speaker who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in showing his emotions, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked the necessity of going humbly to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. He was a poor student in his new institution. However, one day in a literature class he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then scholarships existed to attend Rada – a path to success for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, which he liked more compared to stage acting. And he quit booze during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and so survived through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of the memoir he appears more reserved, more deliberate. A few tales fall a bit flat. He mentions having lunch by his co-star in the film Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting due to resentment. Truly?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes it's your duty to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Indeed. However, he also describes facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply