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Widely regarded as the greatest appearance in movie lore – while he stands utterly motionless.

A young FBI agent, just starting out, navigates the line of detention units arriving at Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, with features like a living skull radiating satanic malice, chillingly static in his form-fitting prisoner's blue outfit. He stands frozen before suddenly he throws himself toward the window, producing that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that genuine criminals tend to be quite dull, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He was not an unknown at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was forged. His Dr. Lecter was based, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, on the classic Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, and also from his icily exacting drama teacher his mentor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a painful subject for Anthony, who recounts how his Lear was subconsciously influenced by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, the daughter he was separated from from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented his absences and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from an old wartime photo of Anthony as a small child 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 scene-stealing supporting player here: a pastry chef and a traditional male, a plain speaker who despised the sanctimonious churchgoers at the church and avoided showing his emotions, but had a streak of dreamy, sentimental tenderness. Richard Hopkins who furiously resented the way they had to go humbly to their wealthy relations like Auntie Patty, whose spouse was acquainted with the famous Bevan and was able to secure young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves while traveling there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Total garbage, that's all it is!”

The pleading was effective, for a time. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. Then, during in a literature class he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem titled The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He says quite plausibly that verse, by itself, launched him. This, and joining the dramatic society at the YMCA. Notably, he graduated without much hope, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic within 10 years. He largely achieved it alone, though at that time there were grants for drama school – a way up for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed with Anthony's worldwide acclaim: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from the play 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 out of frustration – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but stumbled upon a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in the series QB VII, which led indirectly to parts like that in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career on screen, which he liked more to the stage. And he quit booze in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and managed to live through midlife to execute great performances, such as Lecter, the servant Stevens in the film 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 memoir his personality becomes more opaque, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage fall a bit flat. He remembers being taken out to lunch by his co-star in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the much-respected actor Paul, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon wasn't effective. Was this the opportunity for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not exactly. He tends to concur with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as driven by jealousy. Really?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes you must to arrive punctually, remember every crew member's name and proceed with the work. Absolutely. But he also recounts standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who caused a young extra to weep: “Apologize to that girl! And develop some respect. 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 surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply