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Widely regarded as the most iconic appearance in cinematic history – and he remains completely still.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, proceeds down a corridor of cells until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, appearing as a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen before suddenly he propels himself at the barrier, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous real-crime films have since shown that genuine criminals are often very boring, far from Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: he was already established, but rather a megastar emerged. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own icily exacting Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a difficult topic for Hopkins, who further explains how his King Lear was indirectly affected by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who resented his time away and drinking.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he would never do OK. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a bread-maker and man's man, a straightforward talker who loathed the religious hypocrites of the chapel and refused to expressing his feelings, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who was angered by the necessity of going humbly to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. He was a poor student at his new school. Then, during in an English lesson he was required to perform the poem by Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, started his career. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school a no-hoper, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then there were grants to go to Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but fortunately found an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, which he liked more to the stage. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He mentions going out for lunch by his co-star in the film Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Really?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who thinks it's your duty to be on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Absolutely. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A Shakespearean like him must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply