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It stands as the most iconic entrance in cinematic history – and he remains utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, proceeds down the line of detention units until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, with features like a skeletal visage exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move before suddenly he throws himself toward the window, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous real-crime films have since demonstrated that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly a newcomer at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar was forged. His Dr. Lecter drew influence, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his strictly demanding drama teacher his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a sore point for Anthony, who also describes how his 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 was angered by him being away and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a pastry chef and man's man, a straightforward talker who loathed the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and avoided displaying emotion, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked the necessity of going cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims while traveling there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. However, one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver 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 poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, entered the acting world, 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 there were grants to go to Rada – a way up for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed 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 retreated to another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but lucked into a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which paved the way to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, which he preferred over theater. And he quit booze in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it through midlife to execute great performances, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of the memoir he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He recalls being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Truly?

He repeatedly performs the no-nonsense, practical performer who thinks you must to be on time, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Quite so. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply