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Many consider it the most memorable appearance in movie lore – while he stands without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, must walk a corridor of cells until she reaches the notorious doctor's transparent prison. The man is present, his face resembling a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He stands frozen before suddenly he propels himself at the barrier, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless real-crime films have since demonstrated that real-life murderers are often very boring, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar was cemented. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own strictly demanding Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a sore point for the actor, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt about Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who disliked his absences and his alcohol use.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a bread-maker and man's man, a plain speaker who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and refused to expressing his feelings, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked the way they had to go begging to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, for a while. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. However, one day in a literature class he was required to perform John Masefield's poem The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and the other boys. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time financial aid was available to go to Rada – an opportunity for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, which he liked more to the stage. He stopped drinking back in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and managed to live into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the butler Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his second Academy Award.

In the latter half of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He recalls having lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with the director's criticism of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Is that so?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who believes it is one's responsibility to get there on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Indeed. But he also recounts facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply