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Many consider it the most iconic appearance in film history – while he stands completely still.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, must walk a row of prison cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, his face resembling a living skull exuding demonic evil, chillingly static in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move right up until he throws himself against the glass, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of real-crime films have since demonstrated that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

Hopkins was hardly an unknown when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, but a legend emerged. His portrayal of Lecter drew influence, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his rigorously precise Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a painful subject for Anthony, who recounts how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage during the 60s with Petronella Barker, who was angered by him being away and drinking.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a baker and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers of the chapel and refused to showing his emotions, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who deeply disliked the necessity of going humbly to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. But one day in an English lesson he was required to perform the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, pursued acting, and shocking his family, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then financial aid was available for drama school – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then retreated to another room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but lucked into a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, which he liked more to the stage. He stopped drinking back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of the book his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He remembers going out for lunch by his co-star in the film Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting due to resentment. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Absolutely. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply