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It stands as the most memorable entrance in film history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, navigates a row of prison cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, appearing as a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move until the moment he propels himself at the barrier, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since revealed that actual serial killers are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar was cemented. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader as recalled by his daughter, as well as his rigorously precise drama teacher Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a difficult topic for the actor, who further explains how his King Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who disliked his absences and drinking.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of Hopkins as a toddler on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a baker and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and refused to displaying emotion, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who was angered by the necessity of going begging to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. Then, during during an English class he had to recite the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school a no-hoper, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage with the great Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time scholarships existed to go to Rada – a way up for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company 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 Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, which he preferred over theater. And he quit booze back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and so survived into middle age to execute great performances, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He remembers being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Really?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains it is one's responsibility to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Indeed. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. You ever do that again in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! He appears to be a person who quit alcohol but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. A Shakespearean like him must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A straightforward and sincere nature – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply