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It stands as the most memorable entrance in cinematic history – while he stands completely still.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, navigates a corridor of cells arriving at Hannibal Lecter's transparent prison. The man is present, his face resembling a living skull exuding demonic evil, chillingly static clad in a tight prisoner's blue outfit. He remains motionless until the moment he lunges against the glass, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since revealed that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, far from Anthony Hopkins's commanding screen presence.

He wasn't exactly an unknown at the time he got the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar emerged. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, the actor happily remembers in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, as well as his strictly demanding Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a painful subject for Anthony, who also describes how his Lear was indirectly affected by painful regret concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who resented his time away and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from an historical picture of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure here: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a straightforward talker who loathed the religious hypocrites in their community and didn't believe in showing his emotions, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. His father who furiously resented the necessity of going cap-in-hand to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with Nye Bevan and helped enroll Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. However, one day in a literature class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He convincingly states that verse, by itself, launched him. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then scholarships existed to attend Rada – a path to success for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then left the room and burst into tears.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he quit the National Theatre company in a moment of anger – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but lucked into an excellent television part playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which paved the way to roles such as in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, that he favored to the stage. And he quit booze in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into middle age to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in his film The Father – his second Academy Award.

During the second part of the memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. A few tales fall a bit flat. He remembers having lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the opportunity for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor from Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains it's your duty to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Indeed. However, he also describes confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply