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Widely regarded as the most iconic introduction in movie lore – while he stands utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, must walk a corridor of cells arriving at Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, appearing as an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move until the moment he throws himself against the glass, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, far from Anthony Hopkins's commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film in 1989: he was already established, but a legend was forged. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and also from his strictly demanding drama teacher his mentor Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a painful subject for the actor, who further explains how his Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his failed first union back in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and his drinking habits.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He appeared lost, lonely, vulnerable little boy hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a direct communicator who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and didn't believe in showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked the way they had to go humbly to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, who was connected to Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he exclaims 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. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. However, one day in a literature class he had to recite the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and the other students. He convincingly states that poems, alone, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time there were grants for drama school – an opportunity for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but stumbled upon an excellent television part playing an alleged war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in cinema, which he liked more to the stage. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and so survived through midlife to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of the memoir he appears more reserved, more deliberate. A few tales fall a bit flat. He remembers having lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Sorvino, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Really?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it's your duty to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Absolutely. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply