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Widely regarded as the most memorable introduction in film history – while he stands without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, a rookie, must walk a corridor of cells arriving at the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. There he stands, appearing as an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, chillingly static clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen right up until he lunges against the glass, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since shown that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly a newcomer upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller in 1989: a star wasn't born, but a legend was forged. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader as recalled by his daughter, and on his own rigorously precise Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a difficult topic for Hopkins, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who resented him being away and drinking.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he would never do OK. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in displaying emotion, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who furiously resented the necessity of going begging to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The humility worked, for a time. He was a poor student at his new school. However, one day in a literature class he was required to perform the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He convincingly states that poems, alone, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time scholarships existed to attend Rada – a path to success for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but lucked into a great TV role as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, 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 into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the steward 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 book his character seems more elusive, more studied. A few tales fall a bit flat. He recalls having lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Really?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it's your duty to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Absolutely. But he also recounts facing a rude director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. A Shakespearean like him surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

He finishes his autobiography with a detailed supplement composed simply