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Widely regarded as the most iconic introduction in film history – and he remains without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, must walk a row of prison cells finally encountering Dr. Lecter's transparent prison. He is positioned, his face resembling a skeletal visage radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still wearing a snug prisoner's blue outfit. He doesn't move right up until he propels himself against the glass, emitting that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. A multitude of documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized when he landed his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs back in 1989: it wasn't his debut, but a legend emerged. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on the classic Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and on his own rigorously precise Rada tutor his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a painful subject for Hopkins, who also describes how his King Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt about Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who disliked his absences and drinking.

The title originates from an historical picture of Anthony as a small child with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He felt confused, shy and fragile youth from Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who detested the religious hypocrites at the church and didn't believe in showing his emotions, yet possessed a touch of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented how they were forced cap-in-hand to their rich relatives including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and could get the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The humility worked, for a while. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. However, one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and the other boys. He convincingly states that poetry, on its own, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the dramatic society at the YMCA. Notably, he graduated without much hope, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was performing with Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in under a decade. He accomplished it mostly independently, though at that time there were grants to go to Rada – a path to success for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: upon requesting his son to recite the Yorick speech from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and burst into tears.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but fortunately found a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to parts like that in Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, which he preferred over theater. He gave up alcohol during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into his later years to deliver outstanding roles, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of his autobiography his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He mentions being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Sorvino, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for him to absorb something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven out of envy. Is that so?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who thinks it is one's responsibility to get there on time, remember every crew member's name and get on with it. Quite so. But he also recounts confronting an obnoxious director who brought a background actor to tears: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! He appears to be a person who quit alcohol yet perhaps not the aggression that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent in King Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply