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It stands as the most memorable entrance in movie lore – while he stands utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, proceeds down a corridor of cells arriving at Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. He is positioned, appearing as a living skull filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He stands frozen before suddenly he propels himself against the glass, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless documentaries on serial killers have since shown that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller in 1989: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar emerged. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his icily exacting Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a difficult topic for the actor, who further explains how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage in 1966 to his first wife, who resented him being away and his alcohol use.

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 would never do OK. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a baker and a traditional male, a plain speaker who loathed the religious hypocrites in their community and avoided expressing his feelings, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked the necessity of going cap-in-hand 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 posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. But one day during an English class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time scholarships existed to go to 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 perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and began crying.

Regarding the fiery, stubborn individual, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which eventually resulted to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, which he preferred compared to stage acting. And he quit booze back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live into middle age to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of the memoir he appears more reserved, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He mentions having lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who thinks you must to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Quite so. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply