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Many consider it the greatest appearance in movie lore – and he remains completely still.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, proceeds down the line of detention units finally encountering Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. The man is present, appearing as a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen right up until he throws himself at the barrier, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of documentaries on serial killers have since shown that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He wasn't exactly an unknown at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: he was already established, but a legend was forged. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and on his own icily exacting Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. There was also a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a difficult topic for Anthony, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to his first wife, who was angered by him being away and his alcohol use.

The title originates from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in this story: a pastry chef and a tough individual, a plain speaker who despised the religious hypocrites in their community and refused to showing his emotions, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who was angered by how they were forced humbly to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, for a time. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. Then, during in an English lesson he was required to perform the verse by John Masefield titled The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and the other students. He convincingly states that verse, by itself, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic within 10 years. He more or less did it on his own, though at that time financial aid was available to attend Rada – a way up for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then left the room and wept openly.

Concerning the volatile, strong-willed son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but fortunately found an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career in cinema, that he favored over theater. And he quit booze during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and managed to live into middle age to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. A few tales doesn't quite come off. He recalls being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Truly?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who thinks it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and proceed with the work. Absolutely. However, he also describes confronting an obnoxious director who caused a young extra to weep: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply