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It stands as the most memorable introduction in movie lore – while he stands utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, just starting out, must walk a corridor of cells finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. The man is present, appearing as a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless until the moment he propels himself at the barrier, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless real-crime films have since revealed that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: he was already established, instead, a superstar was cemented. The character of Hannibal was based, the actor happily remembers in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his strictly demanding drama teacher his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a sore point for the actor, who further explains how his King Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s with Petronella Barker, who resented his absences and his alcohol use.

The title originates from an historical picture of Hopkins as a toddler on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, shy and fragile youth hailing from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a baker and a tough individual, a plain speaker who detested the religious hypocrites in their community and avoided expressing his feelings, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked the necessity of going cap-in-hand to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the famous Bevan and was able to secure young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims during the car ride. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. However, one day during an English class he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, started his career. 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 acting with the great Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten 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 performers from modest means. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he quit the National Theatre company out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but stumbled upon an excellent television part playing an alleged war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which paved the way to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, which he preferred compared to stage acting. And he quit booze in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and so survived through midlife to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He remembers having lunch by his co-star in the film Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Truly?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it is one's responsibility to get there on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Quite so. But he also recounts facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be an individual who stopped drinking yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. An actor of his caliber is aware of Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply