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It stands as the most iconic introduction in movie lore – while he stands utterly motionless.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, navigates the line of detention units arriving at Hannibal Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, appearing as a living skull filled with sinister intent, eerily immobile in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He stands frozen right up until he throws himself at the barrier, producing that distinctive snarling-hissing noise. Countless real-crime films have since demonstrated that real-life murderers are usually uninteresting, far from Anthony Hopkins's commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized when he landed the part that won him an Oscar in the iconic film back in 1989: a star wasn't born, but rather a megastar was cemented. His portrayal of Lecter was based, the actor happily remembers in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on the Soviet leader according to his daughter's memories, and also from his strictly demanding acting coach his instructor Fettes. The scenes also contained a father-daughter dimension to these scenes; a painful subject for Anthony, who further explains how his portrayal of Lear was subconsciously influenced by painful regret concerning Abigail, the estranged daughter from his failed first union in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who resented his time away and his drinking habits.

The memoir's title is derived from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler with his father at the seaside – the kid who maybe thought he couldn't make it. He appeared lost, isolated and sensitive child from Port Talbot, his father was Richard Arthur Hopkins, the scene-stealing supporting player here: a bread-maker and a traditional male, a direct communicator who loathed the religious hypocrites at the church and refused to showing his emotions, but had a streak of nostalgic, emotional sentimentality. It was Hopkins Sr who furiously resented how they were forced humbly to affluent family members including Auntie Patty, whose husband knew Nye Bevan and was able to secure the young Anthony into an elite school: “Since they are extremely wealthy!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The humility worked, temporarily. Anthony struggled academically at his new school. However, one day in an English lesson he needed to deliver John Masefield's poem known as The West Wind – without prior preparation – and his talent emerged; he stunned the teacher and his classmates. He reasonably claims that verse, by itself, launched him. Combined with participating in the YMCA theater group. Remarkably, he left school with low prospects, entered the acting world, and amazingly to his parents, was acting alongside Laurence Olivier at the Old Vic in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, even though back then scholarships existed for drama school – an opportunity for working-class actors. Richard Hopkins was continually impressed by his son's international fame: upon requesting his son to perform the Yorick monologue from the play Hamlet, Hopkins Sr listened attentively and then retreated to another room and burst into tears.

Regarding the fiery, stubborn individual, he departed the theatrical troupe in a moment of anger – to Olivier's profound dismay and criticism – but lucked into a memorable TV character as a suspected war criminal in Leon Uris's QB VII, which led indirectly to characters including in David Lynch's The Elephant Man and a successful acting career in movies, that he favored to the stage. And he quit booze in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into his later years to execute great performances, like Hannibal Lecter, the servant Stevens in the movie with Emma Thompson featuring Emma Thompson and the old man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

During the second part of the book his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. Certain stories doesn't quite come off. He mentions going out for lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who intended to inform him his acting as Nixon was falling short. Was this the moment for Hopkins to learn something from the legendary star from Goodfellas? Not exactly. Hopkins seems to go along with Stone's rejection of Sorvino as being motivated by jealousy. Truly?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it is one's responsibility to arrive punctually, learn everyone's name on set and proceed with the work. Indeed. Yet he also tells facing a rude director who'd made a young extra cry: “Say sorry to her! And learn some manners. You ever do that again around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as someone who gave up drink but maybe not the belligerence that accompanied it. An actor of his caliber must know the lines about Kent from Cornwall from Lear: “He cannot flatter, he! A straightforward and sincere nature – he is compelled to be honest!”

Anthony ends his memoir with an extensive addendum composed simply