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Many consider it the most iconic introduction in movie lore – and he remains without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, navigates a row of prison cells until she reaches the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, appearing as a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He remains motionless before suddenly he propels himself against the glass, producing that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Countless true-crime documentaries have since demonstrated that real-life murderers tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly a newcomer upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in the 1991 thriller back in 1989: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar was cemented. His portrayal of Lecter drew influence, the actor happily remembers in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, as well as his icily exacting Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a sore point for the actor, who recounts how his King Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who was angered by his time away and his alcohol use.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who despised the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and refused to showing his emotions, but also exhibited nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented the necessity of going humbly to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he exclaims during the car ride. “We are all expecting handouts! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. Hopkins was a hopeless student at the prestigious school. Then, during in an English lesson he had to recite the poem by Masefield titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his talent emerged; he stunned the teacher and the other students. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, went into acting, and shocking his family, was acting with the great Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time scholarships existed for drama school – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: on asking his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but lucked into an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which eventually resulted to parts like that in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, that he favored to the stage. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and thus made it into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, such as Lecter, the butler Stevens in the film The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of the memoir he appears more reserved, more deliberate. A few tales fall a bit flat. He mentions having lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul Sorvino, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Truly?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains it is one's responsibility to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Absolutely. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he must speak truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with a detailed supplement composed simply