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Many consider it the most memorable entrance in cinematic history – yet the actor stays utterly motionless.

The FBI trainee, new to the job, must walk a row of prison cells finally encountering Dr. Lecter's secure glass tank. There he stands, with features like a living skull radiating satanic malice, unnervingly still wearing a snug blue inmate uniform. He doesn't move until the moment he lunges against the glass, making that extraordinary hissing-slavering sound. Numerous real-crime films have since revealed that genuine criminals are usually uninteresting, far from Anthony Hopkins's powerful on-screen charisma.

He was not unrecognized at the time he got his Academy Award-winning part in The Silence of the Lambs in 1989: he was already established, but a legend was forged. His portrayal of Lecter drew influence, the actor happily remembers in his recent memoir, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, and on his own rigorously precise drama teacher his mentor Fettes. There was also a paternal-filial aspect within the narrative; a painful subject for Hopkins, who also describes how his King Lear was indirectly affected by deep-seated remorse concerning Abigail, his distant daughter from his initial marriage during the 60s to his first wife, who resented his absences and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from an historical picture of a young Hopkins with his father at the seaside – the child who might have felt he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, lonely, vulnerable little boy from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the standout secondary character here: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who loathed the religious hypocrites in their community and didn't believe in showing his emotions, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. Richard Hopkins who deeply disliked the necessity of going begging to their wealthy relations including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into a posh school: “Due to their immense riches!” he raves in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Bloody rubbish, that's what it is!”

The pleading was effective, temporarily. He was a poor student in his new institution. However, one day during an English class he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – without seeing it first – and his talent emerged; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He reasonably claims that verse, by itself, propelled him forward. This, along with enrolling in the YMCA drama club. Notably, he graduated with low prospects, pursued acting, and to the astonishment of his parents, was on stage alongside Laurence Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He more or less did it on his own, although in those days scholarships existed to attend Rada – a way up 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, Richard listened carefully and then retreated to another room and wept openly.

As for the hot-tempered, bloody-minded son, he left the National Theatre in a fit of pique – much to Olivier's disappointment and disapproval – but lucked into a memorable TV character playing an alleged war criminal in the series QB VII, which eventually resulted to characters including in the film The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, which he liked more over theater. He gave up alcohol in 1975 after being a heavy drinker, and managed to live into his later years to achieve remarkable acting, including Lecter, the steward Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in the movie The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of the memoir his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. Certain stories fall a bit flat. He mentions being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in the film Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who wanted to tell him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the chance for Hopkins to learn advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. Hopkins seems to go along with the director's criticism of Sorvino as driven due to resentment. Truly?

He often portrays the no-nonsense, practical performer who believes it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Indeed. Yet he also tells confronting an obnoxious director who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And acquire some decency. You ever do that again near me, I'll alter your appearance!” Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but possibly not the combativeness that came with it. An actor of his caliber surely knows the lines about Kent from Cornwall from the play Lear: “He is incapable of flattery! An honest mind and plain – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply