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It stands as the most memorable introduction in cinematic history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, proceeds down a row of prison cells finally encountering the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, his face resembling a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless until the moment he lunges toward the window, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that real-life murderers are often very boring, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized when he landed that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar was cemented. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his strictly demanding Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a painful subject for Anthony, who recounts how his Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who disliked his time away and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in this story: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a plain speaker who detested the religious hypocrites of the chapel and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who was angered by the necessity of going humbly to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. However, one day in a literature class he had to recite the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and the other boys. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, although in those days scholarships existed to attend Rada – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. His dad remained in awe by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but lucked into a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, which he liked more to the stage. And he quit booze in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and so survived into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the later sections of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more studied. Some of the anecdotage aren't entirely successful. He recalls going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who intended to inform him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for him to absorb something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Really?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains it's your duty to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Indeed. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! He appears to be someone who gave up drink yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply