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It stands as the most memorable entrance in movie lore – yet the actor stays completely still.

The FBI trainee, a rookie, proceeds down the line of detention units finally encountering the notorious doctor's transparent prison. He is positioned, with features like a skeletal visage filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move until the moment he propels himself toward the window, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous real-crime films have since demonstrated that real-life murderers are often very boring, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He was not an unknown when he landed that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film during the late 80s: he was already established, but a legend was forged. His portrayal of Lecter drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, and also from his icily exacting acting coach his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a sore point for the actor, who also describes how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to his first wife, who was angered by his time away and drinking.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a plain speaker who loathed the religious hypocrites in their community and refused to showing his emotions, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented the way they had to go begging to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and could get young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he exclaims while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. But one day in a literature class he had to recite the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he amazed the instructor and the other boys. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, launched him. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time financial aid was available to attend Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but stumbled upon a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, which he liked more compared to stage acting. And he quit booze back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and managed to live into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more deliberate. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He recalls being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Really?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Quite so. 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 near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a detailed supplement composed simply