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Many consider it the greatest introduction in movie lore – while he stands utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, navigates the line of detention units finally encountering Hannibal Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, his face resembling an animated death's head filled with sinister intent, unnervingly still wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen until the moment he lunges against the glass, emitting that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that real-life murderers are often very boring, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not unrecognized upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film in 1989: he was already established, instead, a superstar emerged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Joseph Stalin according to his daughter's memories, as well as his rigorously precise acting coach his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a painful subject for Hopkins, who further explains how his King Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage in 1966 to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his absences and drinking.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of a young Hopkins on the beach with his dad – the child who might have felt he wouldn't succeed. 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 loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites in their community and avoided showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who was angered by how they were forced begging to affluent family members like Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into a posh school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The humility worked, temporarily. He was a poor student at his new school. But one day in an English lesson he had to recite John Masefield's poem The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he shocked the educator and the other boys. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, launched him. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Remarkably, he left school without much hope, entered the acting world, and to the astonishment of his parents, was performing with the great Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days financial aid was available to go to Rada – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. His father was always amazed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from the play Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, strong-willed son, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but lucked into an excellent television part playing an alleged war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which paved the way to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, which he preferred compared to stage acting. And he quit booze in 1975 once a notorious drinker, and thus made it into his later years to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more studied. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He remembers going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who sought to advise him his performance as Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Hardly. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated out of envy. Truly?

He consistently acts as the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it's your duty to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Quite so. But he also recounts 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 around me, I'll rearrange your face! Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. A Shakespearean like him must know Cornwall's lines on Kent in King Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A straightforward and sincere nature – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply