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Widely regarded as the greatest appearance in movie lore – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, a rookie, must walk a corridor of cells until she reaches Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. There he stands, his face resembling an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He remains motionless before suddenly he propels himself against the glass, emitting that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since shown that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, far from Anthony Hopkins's commanding screen presence.

He was not unrecognized when he landed that Oscar-winning role in the iconic film during the late 80s: it wasn't his debut, but rather a megastar was forged. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and also from his strictly demanding Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic in these moments; a painful subject for Anthony, who also describes how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by an agonised guilt about Abigail, his distant daughter from his failed first union in 1966 to his first wife, who disliked him being away and his drinking habits.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a baker and a tough individual, a plain speaker who loathed the religious hypocrites of the chapel and didn't believe in showing his emotions, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. It was Hopkins Sr who was angered by the way they had to go humbly to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. Then, during in an English lesson he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school a no-hoper, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then there were grants for drama school – a path to success for performers from modest means. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, that he favored to the stage. And he quit booze in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and managed to live into middle age to achieve remarkable acting, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of the book he appears more reserved, more calculated. A few tales fall a bit flat. He mentions being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Is that so?

He repeatedly performs the grounded, serious thespian who believes you must to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Indeed. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And learn some manners. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply