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Widely regarded as the most memorable entrance in film history – yet the actor stays completely still.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, proceeds down the line of detention units arriving at Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. He is positioned, with features like an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, chillingly static clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless right up until he throws himself at the barrier, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous true-crime documentaries have since shown that actual serial killers tend to be quite dull, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not unrecognized upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in the 1991 thriller in 1989: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar was forged. His Dr. Lecter was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader as recalled by his daughter, and also from his rigorously precise Rada tutor Christopher Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a sore point for Anthony, who recounts how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage back in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his absences and his alcohol use.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player in the narrative: a baker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who detested the religious hypocrites in their community and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented the way they had to go humbly to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The grovelling paid off, for a time. He was a poor student in his new institution. But one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he shocked the educator and his classmates. He reasonably claims that verse, by itself, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, went into acting, and shocking his family, was acting with Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days financial aid was available for drama school – a way up for working-class actors. His dad remained in awe by his son's international fame: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and wept openly.

Regarding the fiery, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but lucked into a great TV role as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in cinema, which he liked more to the stage. He gave up alcohol in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and managed to live into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his second Oscar.

In the latter half of his autobiography his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. A few tales fall a bit flat. He recalls having lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who wanted to tell him his performance as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Is that so?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who maintains you must to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Indeed. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And learn some manners. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he must speak truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply