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It stands as the greatest introduction in movie lore – and he remains utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, navigates the line of detention units finally encountering the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. The man is present, with features like an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, chillingly static in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless right up until he throws himself toward the window, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that actual serial killers are often very boring, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller during the late 80s: a star wasn't born, but a legend was forged. The character of Hannibal drew influence, the actor happily remembers in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, and also from his icily exacting Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a painful subject for Hopkins, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by deep-seated remorse regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who disliked his time away and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He appeared lost, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a plain speaker who detested the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and refused to displaying emotion, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented the necessity of going begging to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. He was a poor student in his new institution. But one day during an English class he was required to perform John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his talent emerged; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, even though back then there were grants to attend Rada – an opportunity for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but lucked into an excellent television part as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, that he favored over theater. And he quit booze in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into his later years to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He remembers going out for lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven by jealousy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who maintains you must to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Absolutely. But he also recounts facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “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! Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply