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Widely regarded as the most memorable appearance in cinematic history – and he remains completely still.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, navigates the line of detention units arriving at Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, appearing as a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, chillingly static wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless right up until he propels himself against the glass, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of real-crime films have since revealed that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not a newcomer upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar emerged. The character of Hannibal drew influence, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, and on his own strictly demanding drama teacher his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a difficult topic for the actor, who further explains how his King Lear was indirectly affected by deep-seated remorse about Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time away and drinking.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child playing on the sand with his father – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in this story: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a plain speaker who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and avoided displaying emotion, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who was angered by the necessity of going cap-in-hand to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and helped enroll the young Anthony into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. Then, during during an English class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and the other students. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, started his career. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school a no-hoper, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then financial aid was available to go to Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which paved the way to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in movies, that he favored over theater. And he quit booze in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of the memoir he appears more reserved, more studied. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He remembers having lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains you must to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Indeed. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him is aware of the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a lengthy appendix composed simply