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Many consider it the most iconic appearance in cinematic history – and he remains without moving a muscle.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, navigates the line of detention units arriving at Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, with features like a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, eerily immobile clad in a tight blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move until the moment he propels himself against the glass, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since revealed that actual serial killers are often very boring, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He was not a newcomer upon receiving that Oscar-winning role in the 1991 thriller in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar emerged. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his icily exacting drama teacher his mentor Fettes. There was also a father-daughter dimension within the narrative; a difficult topic for Hopkins, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 to his first wife, who disliked his absences and his drinking habits.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a plain speaker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers in their community and avoided expressing his feelings, yet possessed a touch of wistful, tearful romanticism. It was Hopkins Sr who deeply disliked the way they had to go humbly to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a posh school: “Because they're bloody rich!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. Hopkins was a hopeless student in his new institution. But one day in a literature class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other students. He convincingly states that verse, by itself, launched him. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Surprisingly, he exited school a no-hoper, went into acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, even though back then there were grants for drama school – an opportunity for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then went into another room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – to Olivier's profound dismay and disapproval – but stumbled upon a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which eventually resulted to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in movies, which he liked more compared to stage acting. He gave up alcohol in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and so survived into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in The Father – his second Oscar.

During the second part of the book he appears more reserved, more calculated. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He remembers going out for lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting by jealousy. Truly?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who believes it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and proceed with the work. Indeed. However, he also describes facing a rude director who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And develop some respect. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” He appears to be someone who gave up drink yet perhaps not the aggression that went with it. An actor of his caliber must know Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! An honest mind and plain – he always tells the truth!”

He finishes his autobiography with an extensive addendum composed simply