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It stands as the most memorable introduction in film history – while he stands completely still.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, navigates a row of prison cells until she reaches the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. The man is present, appearing as an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He stands frozen before suddenly he throws himself toward the window, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous real-crime films have since revealed that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, far from Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He was not unrecognized at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film back in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar was forged. The character of Hannibal drew influence, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, as well as his strictly demanding drama teacher his mentor Fettes. There was also a paternal-filial aspect to these scenes; a sore point for Hopkins, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his failed first union during the 60s with Petronella Barker, who resented his time away and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the kid who maybe thought he would never do OK. He appeared lost, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a direct communicator who despised the religious hypocrites in their community and refused to showing his emotions, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who was angered by the way they had to go begging to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and could get young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts 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. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. Then, during in an English lesson he had to recite the poem by Masefield The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his talent emerged; he stunned the teacher and the other boys. He reasonably claims that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was acting with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time scholarships existed for drama school – a path to success for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and began crying.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but lucked into a great TV role as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, which he preferred to the stage. And he quit booze in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring 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. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He mentions going out for lunch with his fellow actor in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains you must to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Absolutely. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply