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Many consider it the most memorable introduction in movie lore – and he remains completely still.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, navigates the line of detention units until she reaches the notorious doctor's transparent prison. There he stands, with features like an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless until the moment he propels himself at the barrier, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since shown that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not a newcomer at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar emerged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and also from his icily exacting drama teacher his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a painful subject for Anthony, who recounts how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt about Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union during the 60s to his first wife, who disliked his time away and his drinking habits.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a straightforward talker who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in displaying emotion, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented the way they had to go begging to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he shouts while traveling there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. But one day in an English lesson he was required to perform John Masefield's poem The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and the other boys. He reasonably claims that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days financial aid was available to go to Rada – an opportunity for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but lucked into a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which eventually resulted to roles such as in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, that he favored compared to stage acting. And he quit booze in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into middle age to execute great performances, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the latter half of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He remembers going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Truly?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who thinks it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Absolutely. However, he also describes confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. Should you ever act that way near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. An actor of his caliber is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a detailed supplement composed simply