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It stands as the most memorable entrance in film history – and he remains without moving a muscle.

A young FBI agent, new to the job, proceeds down the line of detention units arriving at Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, appearing as a living skull radiating satanic malice, chillingly static in his form-fitting blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless until the moment he lunges at the barrier, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of true-crime documentaries have since revealed that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: a star wasn't born, but a legend was forged. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader as recalled by his daughter, and also from his strictly demanding Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a painful subject for Anthony, who recounts how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret about Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who disliked his time away and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a baker and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who loathed the religious hypocrites in their community and avoided showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented the way they had to go begging to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. Hopkins was a hopeless student at his new school. But one day during an English class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield The West Wind – without seeing it first – and that voice came to life; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, propelled him forward. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in under a decade. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time scholarships existed to attend Rada – an opportunity for working-class actors. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but lucked into an excellent television part playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he preferred over theater. He gave up alcohol during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it into his later years to execute great performances, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more calculated. A few tales fall a bit flat. He remembers being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who wanted to tell him his portrayal of Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Hardly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Really?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, know all the crew's names and get on with it. Quite so. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologise to her! And develop some respect. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that came with it. A Shakespearean like him must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply