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It stands as the greatest entrance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, new to the job, must walk a corridor of cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, his face resembling a living skull filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He stands frozen until the moment he throws himself at the barrier, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, far from Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller during the late 80s: he was already established, but rather a megastar was forged. The character of Hannibal drew influence, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own rigorously precise Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a sore point for Hopkins, who also describes how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who resented his absences and his drinking habits.

The title originates from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a pastry chef and man's man, a straightforward talker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and refused to expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the necessity of going humbly to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and could get young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. Then, during in an English lesson he had to recite the poem by Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He reasonably claims that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. 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, even though back then there were grants for drama school – a way up for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but lucked into a memorable TV character 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 thriving starry career in movies, which he preferred compared to stage acting. He stopped drinking back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He remembers going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Truly?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who believes it's your duty to get there on time, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Absolutely. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be someone who gave up drink but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. An actor of his caliber must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply