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Widely regarded as the most memorable entrance in film history – while he stands without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, new to the job, navigates a row of prison cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. There he stands, appearing as an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen until the moment he lunges toward the window, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, far from Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not an unknown when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but a legend emerged. The character of Hannibal drew influence, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and also from his rigorously precise acting coach his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a difficult topic for the actor, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage in 1966 to his first wife, who resented him being away and his drinking habits.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a baker and man's man, a straightforward talker who detested the religious hypocrites in their community and refused to showing his emotions, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the necessity of going humbly to their rich relatives including 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 shouts during the car ride. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. However, one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and the other students. He reasonably claims that poetry, on its own, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, although in those days scholarships existed to attend Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he departed the theatrical troupe out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to roles such as in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he liked more over theater. He stopped drinking back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and so survived into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the latter half of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He mentions going out for lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven by jealousy. Really?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains it is one's responsibility to get there on time, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Indeed. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply