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Widely regarded as the most iconic entrance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, a rookie, navigates a corridor of cells arriving at Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, with features like an animated death's head radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move right up until he propels himself against the glass, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since shown that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's commanding screen presence.

He wasn't exactly unrecognized upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: he was already established, but a legend emerged. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his rigorously precise acting coach his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a difficult topic for the actor, who recounts how his King Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret concerning Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage in 1966 to his first wife, who resented his absences and his drinking habits.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He felt confused, lonely, vulnerable little boy hailing from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a baker and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who detested the religious hypocrites in their community and refused to showing his emotions, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented the necessity of going humbly to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and could get young Anthony into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves during the car ride. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. Then, during in a literature class he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, launched him. This, and joining the YMCA theater group. Surprisingly, he exited school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was acting with the great Olivier at the Old Vic within 10 years. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time scholarships existed for drama school – a path to success for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and disapproval – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, which he liked more over theater. And he quit booze in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He recalls being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb advice from the renowned performer of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. Hopkins seems to go along with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Truly?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who believes it's your duty to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Indeed. But he also recounts facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like someone who gave up drink yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. An actor of his caliber is aware of Cornwall's speech regarding Kent in King Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply