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Many consider it the most memorable appearance in film history – and he remains completely still.

The FBI trainee, just starting out, proceeds down a row of prison cells until she reaches Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, his face resembling a living skull exuding demonic evil, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue prison jumpsuit. He doesn't move before suddenly he propels himself against the glass, making that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. A multitude of documentaries on serial killers have since shown that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, far from Anthony Hopkins's captivating film persona.

He wasn't exactly an unknown at the time he got that Oscar-winning role in the 1991 thriller during the late 80s: a star wasn't born, but a legend emerged. His portrayal of Lecter was inspired, Hopkins cheerfully recalls in his latest book, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin according to his daughter's memories, and also from his rigorously precise Rada tutor his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a paternal-filial aspect in these moments; a difficult topic for the actor, who further explains how his King Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret about Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage during the 60s to Petronella Barker, who resented his absences and drinking.

The book's name comes from a vintage war-era photograph of Anthony as a small child on the beach with his dad – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He was a bewildered, isolated and sensitive child raised in Port Talbot, son of Richard Arthur Hopkins, the memorable figure in this story: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a direct communicator who loathed the Bible-punching hypocrites of the chapel and avoided expressing his feelings, but also exhibited dreamy, sentimental tenderness. His father who deeply disliked the necessity of going begging to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, who was connected to the famous Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into a prestigious academy: “Because they're bloody rich!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “Everyone is looking for scraps! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically at the prestigious school. However, one day during an English class he needed to deliver the verse by John Masefield known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his voice awakened; he amazed the instructor and the other boys. He convincingly states that poems, alone, propelled him forward. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Notably, he graduated with low prospects, entered the acting world, and shocking his family, was performing alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He largely achieved it alone, although in those days scholarships existed to attend Rada – an opportunity for actors from humble backgrounds. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed of Anthony's global success: upon requesting his son to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, Richard listened carefully and then went into another room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, stubborn individual, he left the National Theatre in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and displeasure – but stumbled upon a great TV role as a potential war criminal in the show based on Uris's work, which eventually resulted to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, which he preferred to the stage. He stopped drinking during the mid-70s once a notorious drinker, and managed to live through midlife 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 his film The Father – his second Oscar.

In the later sections of his autobiography he appears more reserved, more calculated. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He recalls having lunch with his fellow actor in Oliver Stone's Nixon, the esteemed thespian Paul, who sought to advise him his portrayal of Nixon was falling short. Was this the opportunity for him to absorb a lesson from the famous actor of the Goodfellas fame? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Is that so?

He often portrays the tough, down-to-earth professional actor who maintains you must to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Indeed. Yet he also tells standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who brought a background actor to tears: “Say sorry to her! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that in front of me, I'll change the shape of your face! Hopkins sounds like a person who quit alcohol but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. An actor of his caliber must know Cornwall's speech regarding Kent from Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! A truthful and simple spirit – he must speak truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply