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Many consider it the greatest introduction in film history – while he stands utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, navigates the line of detention units finally encountering the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, his face resembling a living skull filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen until the moment he throws himself against the glass, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since shown that genuine criminals are often very boring, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's commanding screen presence.

He was not an unknown when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller during the late 80s: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar was cemented. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his rigorously precise Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a sore point for the actor, who further explains how his King Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who disliked his time away and drinking.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a plain speaker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and avoided expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who was angered by how they were forced cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and could get young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts during the car ride. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. However, one day in a literature class he was required to perform John Masefield's poem The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other boys. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated with low prospects, went into acting, and shocking his family, was on stage with the great Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then scholarships existed to go to Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and criticism – but fortunately found a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, which he liked more compared to stage acting. And he quit booze back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and so survived into his later years to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Academy Award.

During the second part of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more studied. A few tales fall a bit flat. He remembers being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Sorvino, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who thinks it's your duty to be on time, know all the crew's names and do the job. Quite so. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that 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. A Shakespearean like him surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply