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Many consider it the most iconic introduction in movie lore – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, navigates a corridor of cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. There he stands, with features like a living skull filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen before suddenly he throws himself toward the window, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless real-crime films have since demonstrated that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, with nothing resembling the actor's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller in 1989: a star wasn't born, but a legend emerged. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and also from his icily exacting drama teacher his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a painful subject for Anthony, who recounts how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his failed first union back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who disliked his time away and his alcohol use.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and refused to expressing his feelings, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the necessity of going cap-in-hand to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and could get young Anthony into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims during the car ride. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. He was a poor student in his new institution. Then, during in an English lesson he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that poems, alone, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, entered the acting world, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time financial aid was available for drama school – an opportunity for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from the play Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but lucked into a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he preferred to the stage. And he quit booze back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of the memoir he appears more reserved, more deliberate. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He mentions going out for lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. Hopkins seems to go along with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Really?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Absolutely. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of Cornwall's lines on Kent from the play Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply