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Many consider it the most iconic entrance in movie lore – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, must walk the line of detention units arriving at Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, appearing as an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He stands frozen right up until he propels himself against the glass, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. A multitude of real-crime films have since demonstrated that actual serial killers are often very boring, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not a newcomer when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar emerged. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and also from his rigorously precise acting coach Christopher Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a painful subject for the actor, who also describes how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret about Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and drinking.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a bread-maker and man's man, a straightforward talker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and refused to expressing his feelings, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who was angered by how they were forced humbly to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. Then, during during an English class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He convincingly states that verse, by itself, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days there were grants for drama school – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. His dad remained in awe by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but lucked into a great TV role as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, which he liked more over theater. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He recalls having lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. He tends to concur with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven by jealousy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who thinks it is one's responsibility to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Absolutely. However, he also describes facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink 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 cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply