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It stands as the most iconic entrance in film history – yet the actor stays without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, navigates a corridor of cells arriving at the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. The man is present, with features like a living skull exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless until the moment he propels himself toward the window, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless real-crime films have since shown that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He was not unrecognized upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film in 1989: it wasn't his debut, instead, a superstar emerged. His portrayal of Lecter was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin as recalled by his daughter, and also from his icily exacting drama teacher his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a sore point for Hopkins, who further explains how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse regarding his daughter Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented his absences and his drinking habits.

The title originates from an historical picture of Hopkins as a toddler playing on the sand with his father – the kid who maybe thought he would never do OK. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child hailing from Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a baker and a tough individual, a direct communicator who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and refused to showing his emotions, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who deeply disliked the necessity of going cap-in-hand to their wealthy relations such as Aunt Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and helped enroll young Anthony into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We are all expecting handouts! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. Then, during in an English lesson he had to recite John Masefield's poem titled The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and the other boys. He says quite plausibly that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated a no-hoper, pursued acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing with the great Olivier at the renowned Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days there were grants to attend Rada – a way up for performers from modest means. His father was always amazed by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and burst into tears.

Regarding the fiery, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – much to Olivier's disappointment and displeasure – but stumbled upon an excellent television part as a suspected war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which led indirectly to roles such as in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a thriving starry career on screen, which he liked more to the stage. He gave up alcohol in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and thus made it through midlife to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in the movie The Father – his second Academy Award.

During the second part of the memoir he appears more reserved, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He recalls having lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul Sorvino, who sought to advise him his acting as Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Not really. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection that Sorvino was acting out of envy. Really?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes you must to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and do the job. Indeed. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologise to her! And learn some manners. Should you ever act that way around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that came with it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply