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It stands as the greatest entrance in film history – yet the actor stays completely still.

The FBI trainee, a rookie, proceeds down a corridor of cells arriving at Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, appearing as an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless until the moment he throws himself against the glass, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of real-crime films have since demonstrated that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, far from Anthony Hopkins's commanding screen presence.

He was not a newcomer when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar emerged. His Dr. Lecter was based, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and also from his icily exacting acting coach Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a difficult topic for Hopkins, who recounts how his portrayal of 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 alcohol use.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child with his father at the seaside – the kid who maybe thought he would never do OK. He felt confused, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a plain speaker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and didn't believe in displaying emotion, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who was angered by how they were forced cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and could get Anthony as a boy into a prestigious academy: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. But one day during an English class he had to recite the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his talent emerged; he shocked the educator and the other boys. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, started his career. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, entered the acting world, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting with the great Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days financial aid was available for drama school – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but lucked into an excellent television part playing an alleged war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which eventually resulted to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, that he favored over theater. He stopped drinking back in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the latter half of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He remembers being taken out to lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Really?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who believes it is one's responsibility to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Absolutely. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Hopkins sounds like an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. An actor of his caliber must know Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a lengthy appendix composed simply