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Many consider it the greatest entrance in cinematic history – while he stands without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, navigates a corridor of cells finally encountering the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, with features like a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless until the moment he propels himself toward the window, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: he was already established, but a legend was cemented. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his rigorously precise drama teacher his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect to these scenes; a painful subject for the actor, who recounts how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who disliked him being away and drinking.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a baker and man's man, a straightforward talker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented how they were forced humbly to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. He was a poor student in his new institution. Then, during during an English class he was required to perform John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Notably, he graduated without much hope, went into acting, and shocking his family, was on stage with the great Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, although in those days financial aid was available to go to Rada – a path to success for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to recite the Yorick speech from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, strong-willed son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but fortunately found a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, that he favored compared to stage acting. And he quit booze back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and so survived into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more calculated. Certain stories aren't entirely successful. He mentions going out for lunch by his co-star in the film Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Really?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it's your duty to be on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Quite so. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply