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Many consider it the most iconic appearance in film history – yet the actor stays completely still.

Clarice Starling, a rookie, must walk the line of detention units arriving at the notorious doctor's secure glass tank. He is positioned, with features like a living skull radiating satanic malice, chillingly static in his form-fitting prisoner's blue outfit. He remains motionless right up until he throws himself at the barrier, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since shown that actual serial killers are often very boring, with nothing resembling Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not an unknown when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: he was already established, instead, a superstar was cemented. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his latest book, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and on his own icily exacting acting coach his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension in these moments; a sore point for Hopkins, who also describes how his Lear was unknowingly shaped by painful regret concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union back in 1966 to his first wife, who disliked his time away and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of a young Hopkins playing on the sand with his father – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure in the narrative: a bread-maker and man's man, a straightforward talker who loathed the religious hypocrites of the chapel and didn't believe in expressing his feelings, but also exhibited wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented the necessity of going begging to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he shouts in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. Then, during in an English lesson he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – sight unseen – and his talent emerged; he stunned the teacher and the other boys. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, launched him. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the renowned Old Vic within 10 years. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then there were grants to go to Rada – a path to success for performers from modest means. His dad remained in awe of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and began crying.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a potential war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, that he favored over theater. He gave up alcohol in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and thus made it into middle age to execute great performances, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson with Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

During the second part of the book his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He remembers being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight something from the legendary star of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's dismissal that Sorvino was acting due to resentment. Truly?

He consistently acts as the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes you must to be on time, know all the crew's names and proceed with the work. Quite so. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! He appears to be a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. An actor of his caliber must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent in King Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with a lengthy appendix composed simply