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It stands as the most memorable entrance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays completely still.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, must walk a row of prison cells finally encountering the notorious doctor's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, his face resembling a living skull radiating satanic malice, chillingly static in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move right up until he lunges against the glass, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Countless true-crime documentaries have since revealed that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He wasn't exactly an unknown upon receiving the part that won him an Oscar in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: he was already established, but a legend was forged. The character of Hannibal was inspired, Hopkins notes with amusement in his recent memoir, from Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader as recalled by his daughter, and on his own rigorously precise acting coach his mentor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic to these scenes; a sore point for Hopkins, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by deep-seated remorse regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his initial marriage back in 1966 to his first wife, who resented his absences and drinking.

The book's name comes from an old wartime photo of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the boy who perhaps believed he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character in the narrative: a pastry chef and man's man, a direct communicator who detested the religious hypocrites in their community and refused to expressing his feelings, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who was angered by how they were forced cap-in-hand to their rich relatives like Auntie Patty, whose husband knew the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. He was a poor student at the prestigious school. But one day during an English class he had to recite John Masefield's poem The West Wind – sight unseen – and his voice awakened; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He convincingly states that poems, alone, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school without much hope, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in under a decade. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time scholarships existed to attend Rada – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to perform the Yorick monologue from Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then left the room and began crying.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and criticism – but stumbled upon a great TV role playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey in cinema, which he preferred compared to stage acting. And he quit booze during the mid-70s having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived through midlife to deliver outstanding roles, such as Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day alongside Emma Thompson and the senior with memory loss in his film The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of the book his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. A few tales aren't entirely successful. He remembers having lunch with his fellow actor in Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Sorvino, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for Anthony to gain insight a lesson from the famous actor of Scorsese's Goodfellas? Hardly. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Is that so?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes it is one's responsibility to be on time, remember every crew member's name and do the job. Indeed. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who caused a young extra to weep: “Say sorry to her! And acquire some decency. Should you ever act that way in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins is aware of Cornwall's speech regarding Kent in King Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Hopkins concludes his book with an extensive addendum composed simply