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It stands as the most iconic entrance in movie lore – while he stands without moving a muscle.

Clarice Starling, new to the job, must walk the line of detention units until she reaches Dr. Lecter's reinforced glass enclosure. He is positioned, appearing as an animated death's head exuding demonic evil, chillingly static in his form-fitting blue prison jumpsuit. He remains motionless until the moment he lunges at the barrier, making that unforgettable spitting-growling noise. Numerous documentaries on serial killers have since demonstrated that genuine criminals are often very boring, lacking anything like Anthony Hopkins's commanding screen presence.

Hopkins was hardly unrecognized upon receiving his Academy Award-winning part in the iconic film during the late 80s: a star wasn't born, instead, a superstar emerged. The character of Hannibal was based, Hopkins notes with amusement in this new autobiography, on Bela Lugosi's Dracula, on Stalin based on his daughter's accounts, and also from his icily exacting acting coach his instructor Fettes. Additionally, there existed a parent-child dynamic within the narrative; a painful subject for the actor, who recounts how his portrayal of Lear was indirectly affected by an agonised guilt regarding his daughter Abigail, his distant daughter from his disastrous first marriage in 1966 with Petronella Barker, who was angered by him being away and his alcohol use.

The title originates from a vintage war-era photograph of Hopkins as a toddler on the beach with his dad – the boy who perhaps believed he wouldn't succeed. He was a bewildered, lonely, vulnerable little boy raised in Port Talbot, the child of Richard Hopkins, the standout secondary character in this story: a bread-maker and a tough individual, a direct communicator who loathed the religious hypocrites of the chapel and refused to showing his emotions, but had a streak of wistful, tearful romanticism. His father who deeply disliked how they were forced humbly to affluent family members such as Aunt Patty, who was connected to the politician Nye Bevan and was able to secure Anthony as a boy into an elite school: “Due to their immense riches!” he exclaims in the car on the way there. “We're all hoping for some pickings! Absolute nonsense, that's the truth!”

The pleading was effective, for a while. Anthony struggled academically in his new institution. However, one day during an English class he needed to deliver the poem by Masefield The West Wind – sight unseen – and that voice came to life; he amazed the instructor and his classmates. He reasonably claims that poems, alone, started his career. This, and joining the YMCA drama club. Surprisingly, he exited school a no-hoper, went into acting, and amazingly to his parents, was on stage with the great Olivier at the famous theater in just ten years. He accomplished it mostly independently, although in those days there were grants to go to Rada – a way up for working-class actors. His father was always amazed of Anthony's global success: when he asked Anthony to deliver the Yorick lines from Shakespeare's Hamlet, his father paid close attention and then went into another room and burst into tears.

Concerning the volatile, bloody-minded son, he departed the theatrical troupe in a fit of pique – causing Olivier's regret and displeasure – but lucked into a memorable TV character as a potential war criminal in the series QB VII, which paved the way to roles such as in the film The Elephant Man and a luminous film journey on screen, which he preferred over theater. He gave up alcohol back in 1975 having been a hell-raising alcoholic, and so survived into middle age to execute great performances, including Lecter, the servant Stevens in The Remains of the Day with Emma Thompson and the elderly man with dementia in The Father – his next Oscar win.

In the later sections of the book his character seems more elusive, more deliberate. Some of the anecdotage doesn't quite come off. He remembers being taken out to lunch alongside his cast mate in Stone's Nixon, the highly regarded performer Paul, who intended to inform him his portrayal of Nixon wasn't working. Was this the chance for Anthony to gain insight advice from the renowned performer of the Goodfellas fame? Not really. Anthony appears to agree with Stone's dismissal of Sorvino as being motivated due to resentment. Is that so?

He often portrays the grounded, serious thespian who maintains it's your duty to be on time, learn everyone's name on set and get on with it. Absolutely. However, he also describes standing up to an unpleasant filmmaker who'd made a young extra cry: “Apologize to that girl! And develop some respect. If you ever repeat that around me, I'll rearrange your face! Anthony comes across as an individual who stopped drinking but maybe not the belligerence that went with it. A classical performer like Hopkins must know Cornwall's lines on Kent from Lear: “He does not know how to flatter! A truthful and simple spirit – he always tells the truth!”

Anthony ends his memoir with a detailed supplement composed simply